


just a couple lovebirds (we got a good thing)

by luninosity



Category: Actor RPF, Captain America (Movies) RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Escorts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, BDSM, Banter, Consensual Kink, Dom/sub Undertones, Escort Service, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Fantasizing, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Porn with Feelings, Restraints, Sexual Content, Unresolved Sexual Tension, but all in the past and only briefly referenced, or I hope so, there's no good tag for 'more a companionship service than escort service', to be resolved soon, very brief chris/other and seb/other in context of this au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-06-07 16:22:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 55,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6813031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian grabs his laptop, and opens a new client file, and names it <i>Evans, Chris.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. wednesday afternoon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ViperSeven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViperSeven/gifts).



> Title courtesy of Weezer's new album. I think there are eight chapters, but I've been wrong before...
> 
> This is the fault of my friends. See what happens when you encourage me? See?

“We have new clients.”  
  
Sebastian opens both eyes and doesn’t bother to pretend he’s not been napping on his office sofa. It’s a stouthearted sofa. Stalwart. “We have new clients every day.”  
  
“We have famous new clients.” Anthony ambles in to drop two folders on his chest. Afternoon sunshine slants across them, helpfully highlighting names. “Recognize these?”  
  
Sebastian looks at the first name. Nearly falls off his sofa. Stops to breathe. Okay, okay, they can handle this—  
  
He reads the second name.  
  
This time he sits bolt upright, and gulps, “Oh my god…”  
  
“Robert Downey Junior,” Anthony rhapsodizes, “and Chris Evans. Not together, I mean. Of course. But here. Partaking of our fabulous amenities.”  
  
“We are fairly fabulous,” Sebastian agrees dazedly. He’s distracted by names. Big names, so big they rattle around this tiny escort service and shake cheery white walls until they’re dizzy. Robert. And Chris. Here.  
  
Their agency occupies a serene skinny turn-of-the-century renovated old hotel in New York City. They’re not big, but they’ve built a reputation, the kind that’s not too shabby for an idea they’d had as two out-of-work actors in the big city. Everybody needs friends, after all. Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie provide exactly that: a kind of friend-for-hire, a literal escort service, a way for the celebrated-but-lonely to borrow a pal for the afternoon or evening with no expectations and no strings attached. Sometimes people need hugs, sometimes people need people; Anthony’d said as much during a tipsy pie-in-the-sky planning session three years ago. Sebastian’d smiled.  
  
He knows precisely how hard being lonely can be. He knows he’s never been good at being alone.   
  
He knows how much having someone to hold him, to sit beside him—even a paid someone—would’ve meant, some nights.   
  
He doesn’t generally think about the rough and empty and heavy years, nor about the thin pale razor-straight lines along one forearm. That’s over a decade ago, anyway, and he’s doing fine, he’s got Anthony and this agency and their employees and they’re helping people, they really are. That thought makes his chest glow. Fulfilled and fuzzy and fizzy as triumph. Banners waving, trumpets blowing. Helping people: yes.   
  
Their little agency’d skyrocketed to some lists of desirable services, composed by desirable persons, and their client files’ve more than quadrupled this last year alone. Apparently people do need friends. And sometimes, yes, sex; Sebastian’s not averse to letting their escorts take those assignments, as long as it’s arranged in the contract and consented to by the escort in question beforehand. He’s not naïve. Sex matters. Sex creates closeness, even if temporary. Their clients hope for that.  
  
Robert Downey Junior: that’s a coup. The man in question seems to be a celebrity for, well, everything: an actor, an activist, an author of three bestselling healthy-living cookbooks, a life of the party. People invite him places just to say he’s come. He’s reportedly happily married, but that doesn’t mean he’s not lonely or in need of a companion while on the road; Sebastian makes mental notes while flipping through Anthony’s physical ones based on the telephone appointment. Sunlight glances off pages as he shifts position.  
  
“When’s he coming in?” He or Anthony always tries to meet potential clients in person, at least the first time. “Does that say next Friday? Or…Fribsday? What the fuck is your handwriting, this is terrible.”  
  
“It says Fabulous Day, we’re fabulous, didn’t you hear me, and yes Friday, and shut up and fix my commas when you type this up, kid.”  
  
“I only fix your commas because they annoy me…like you annoy me…awful, why’re we friends…he wants someone for company, mostly? And this note says…does that say bang like a screen door? Seriously?” Anthony’s a handful of years older. Sebastian does not feel older most of the time, being young enough to have tried to fit an entire can’s worth of whipped cream into his mouth the week before, but when it comes to grammar, he’s a cranky eighteenth-century editor. He’s aware.  
  
“He said he’ll talk more about it in person, which is _always_ code for _I want someone to have sex with_. I like him. I want that interview.”  
  
“Of course you do,” Sebastian says wearily, and opens the other folder. “Chris Evans.”  
  
Chris Evans. Relatively new on the film-industry scene, but making a splash in a pool that’s got a lot of splashes already, so not to be ignored. Reputedly a brilliant young director, two films under his belt, both bittersweet romantic-comedy-realism, small-scale but critically acclaimed and full of heart. Sebastian’s seen both. Sebastian’s gotten a little teary over both.  
  
“They both want to come in on Friday,” Anthony explains, both exaggeratedly helpful and genuinely professional, sitting down beside him. Sebastian just barely refrains from making a face. He’s a morning person and a night person but not an afternoon person. He’d wanted the rest of his nap. “Same time, too. Which is why you need to do the interview with Evans.”  
  
“I honestly can’t read your writing. What does he want? The standard friend package, an escort around town, the whole ravishment in a hotel room extravaganza?” Chris Evans isn’t from New York, being a native son of Sudbury, which is essentially but not quite Boston. Sebastian might’ve done a bit of poking around online. He’d been impressed by Chris Evans. By Chris’s charity donations and obvious gift for storytelling. Which has nothing to do with any shirtless rock-climbing pictures or rippling biceps or tempting tattoos. Clearly.  
  
Nothing to do with that in any way. The man’s directorial talent is not in his biceps.  
  
Or in his ridiculously tiny waist.  
  
Or in his splendid long eyelashes and tiny boyish freckles.  
  
“Just company.” Oh. Yes. Anthony’s still here. On his couch. “He said it’s hard for him to meet new people, he’s kinda nervous, and someone recommended us, y’know, no strings attached, and he thought it might be worth a try. Not sex.”  
  
Ah, well. So much for that fantasy.  
  
Sebastian blinks. He hadn’t even realized he’d _had_ that fantasy. But evidently his brain’s decided to play a high-resolution daydream about the muscles and the big ocean-blue eyes and the strength, coming into his office, inquiring about escort services and potential ravishment, and bending him over on the spot, taking him and claiming him and, yes, ravishing him, right there atop his own sofa.  
  
He blinks again. Hopes the sofa—and Anthony sitting on it—can’t read his guilty mind.  
  
“Friday,” he says. “Right. Yes, fine, I can do that.” He’s only doing paperwork otherwise, updating a few client records. Friday’s busy for their escorts but not as much for himself and Anthony. Usually.  
  
“You okay, kid?”  
  
And then there’s the fact that Anthony knows him irritatingly well. “I had elaborate exciting plans involving strippers and balloons. Since you’d be busy with Robert. No, it’s fine, you know I’m a fan, that’s all, it’s not as if we’ve not had big names in here before. I can handle Chris Evans.”  
  
“I want to be here if you’re calling strippers,” Anthony says. “He seemed cool on the phone. A little skittish, but most people are when they call an escort agency for the first time. If he’s a dick in person, you yell for me, all right? I’m just down the hall. Or call Don up here. He’s just waiting to threaten someone on your behalf.”  
  
Their downstairs security is a friend of Sebastian’s who’s gone from gym trainer to workout partner to employee and friend. Don Saladino adores Sebastian, albeit in the manner of a slightly older sibling who’s put a lot of work into both their muscles, and has taken personally a few irate phone calls from a certain former client, one who’s a bit _too_ angry that Sebastian no longer accepts appointments but only manages them.  
  
“I appreciate the concern,” Sebastian retorts, as dryly as he can, “but I can handle it, Mack Attack.” The return of this years-old nickname—it’d been hilarious at the time, though neither of them can recall why—makes Anthony chortle. “And you’ll be occupied. With Robert. The client you want for yourself, remember?  Go away now, I need to fix your grammar and set up new client files and _finish taking a decent nap_ before Elizabeth checks in at two am. Get out of my office.”  
  
“You doin’ that follow-up? Thought I was.”  
  
“No, I am. It’s…she’s…it _is_ an engagement with sex, and she said she was fine with what the client wanted, nothing that’s even a soft no, but he did want some…let’s say a _little_ kinky, not too out there, nothing I’ve not done…don’t say that’s a nonexistent list, thank you…but you know I have more experience with that than you do. You can go home.”  
  
“Hmm.” Anthony gets up, but leans in the doorway, shoulder propped on comfortable wood. “You also know you don’t have to do everything yourself, Sea Bass. Yeah, you used to get tied up and put on your knees and spanked and all that, but you told me what to ask, how to handle that kind of aftercare, we bonded over that shit, kid. I can do that follow-up as well as you can. Or almost. Close enough, unless there’s a real problem, and then we’d call you.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“I’m trading you tonight for tomorrow night, then. I’ll stay up. You can be all fresh and rosy for Chris Evans Friday afternoon.”  
  
Sebastian throws a sofa-pillow at him. Anthony escapes down the hall. The pillow misses, but Anthony’s laughter floats back to haunt him as he goes to retrieve it, like a prophecy, like a shape of a future to come.   
  
Sebastian, pillow in hand, shakes this thought away. A huff of amusement at himself. A smile. And puts his fluffy ammunition back in place—it grins too, possibly at him, or hopefully _with_ him—and curls up in his desk chair, which he’d splurged on because he finally could. It’s huge and navy-blue plush and lets him drape long legs over the side or tuck them up crosslegged if he wants. It’s got side-wings and rolling arms and it looks like something out of a mid-century fairy-story, and it cuddles him in softness and he loves it and it loves him right back.  
  
He grabs his laptop, and opens a new client file, and names it _Evans, Chris_.


	2. friday afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sebastian Stan meets Chris Evans and arranges an appointment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters per week probably isn't normal as far as posting, but I couldn't resist. :D

Sebastian can’t sit still.  
  
This is hardly a new occurrence—he paces while talking to clients on the phone, he plays with pens while thinking about the short stories he occasionally pretends he’s good at writing, he talks to his employees with big illustrative gestures—but today, he has to admit, is worse than normal.  
  
He sits upright in his big soft office chair. He thinks that maybe that’s too formal, Chris might not like formal, so he comes out from behind his desk and sits on his couch, at the back of the room; but then he worries that’s too _in_ formal, so he jumps back up.  
  
He leans a hip on the front of his desk. Crosses his arms. Casual. Professional. In charge. His office.  
  
Seven minutes.  
  
His office snickers at him.                                                                                               
  
He tries sitting on his desk. This rumples the stylish slim-fit pants and black waistcoat and matching slim emerald tie he is absolutely not wearing in order to impress Chris Evans.  
  
He’d had lunch with an old friend. Will has a successful talk show and permanently shows up dressed like the exact next runaway fashion trend and had picked a popular expensive café. Sebastian’d wanted to look nice _for_ his friend.   
  
“Really,” he says to his desk and sofa, “that’s why.” They do not stop mutely judging him.  
  
He rolls up his sleeves. Runs a hand through his hair. Glimpses the result in his mirror, cringes, attempts to fix what he’s just done. His hair’s not having it.  
  
Five minutes. Five minutes to go.  
  
He collapses back into his desk chair, which encircles him comfortingly. He scrubs a hand over his face. Makes himself drink water. Wonders whether Chris Evans likes water. Everyone likes water, right? If Chris wants a proper drink there’s a cart next to the mirror; some prospective clients need that, coming in. Sebastian happily devours chocolate-blueberry martinis but doesn’t generally drink with clients, but can have one, if Chris is, if that’d make Chris more relaxed.  
  
Four minutes.  
  
He breathes, in and out.  
  
A knock rattles off his door-frame and bounces around office walls.  
  
Sebastian bolts upright, panics, and yells, “Come in!” with enough accidental volume to make his desk wince.  
  
Chris Evans is _early_. This is _unfair_.  
  
“Um,” Chris Evans says, coming in, “hi?”  
  
Chris Evans brings sunshine into Sebastian’s office. He’s wearing a green shirt and time-worn soft jeans and a shiny blue jacket that hugs his shoulders, which barely fit through the door, though this may be an exaggeration in Sebastian’s brain, which has many thoughts regarding those shoulders. Chris Evans has short dark ruffled hair and a neatly trimmed dark beard, which somehow makes him more masculine and more adorable at once, drawing attention to the bones of his face, the fairness of his skin, the soulful blue of his eyes.  
  
Sebastian should probably remember how to talk at some point.  
  
“Sorry,” Chris Evans goes on, with a precious self-deprecating hand-wave, “I know I’m early, but your receptionist said to just come up? He said you were expecting me? You’re Sebastian Stan, right?”  
  
Sebastian dives out from behind his desk, offers a hand. Chris sounds shy. Tentative. Chris should never sound this way. Not if Sebastian can help it. “Yes, sorry, hi, I just was in the middle of—” Of what? Daydreaming about your shoulders? No! “—updating your file.” Not entirely a lie. He’d done that earlier. “I’m Sebastian, yes. Anything else sounds strange. Mr Stan? No.” Stop babbling. Get himself together. He can do those things. “Come in and sit down. This shouldn’t take too long; I promise to be quick.”  
  
“And painless?” Chris’s grip, shaking his hand, is firm but not too firm, warm and sincere. “I have to say, I’m kinda impressed by the exclusivity. Makin’ me a little nervous, like I have to prove myself to you.”  
  
Hints of Boston, of history and New England harbors, dance along Chris’s words. Snowfall and cider, patriot stories and pubs. Sebastian’s mesmerized. Chris takes the chair in front of his desk, which solves one problem; he dashes around and plops into his own. “We do interviews with all our prospective clients. We wouldn’t send our escorts out with anyone that one of us, myself or Anthony, hasn’t personally approved. But don’t worry about it, please. Just be yourself.”  
  
“Anthony’s the one I spoke to on the phone? So you guys run this place?”  
  
“We started this agency three years ago. It was only us back then. Now we’re mostly retired and you have many more interesting options. So tell me what you’re looking for, coming in today—what?”  
  
“Nothing…”                                                                                      
  
Sebastian waits. Chris caves. “I thought you’d be older.”  
  
Sebastian narrows eyes. “I am. Aches and pains and a broken hip. Uphill to school both ways in the snow. Not this century’s snow, mind you; I’m secretly a three-hundred-year-old incubus trapped in a thirty-something body. Kids these days and their music. Swift Taylors and Singular Directions.” He doesn’t even know why he’s being a brat. Chris Evans’ bluntness, surprise, evaluative eyes: they’d swept over him and assessed him, and he’s going to _assess_ right back. “I thought you’d be taller.”  
  
And Chris Evans lights up all over, laughing.  
  
Sebastian gazes at him, entranced.  
  
Chris Evans laughs with his whole body, with nothing held back. Chris laughs from the gut and the heart, big and exuberant and unabashed. Chris flings a hand out, chortles, claps himself on the chest; he’s beaming, and Sebastian’s office and his spectator sofa and the whole damn universe collectively get a little brighter, because how can they not, when that laugh exists.  
  
Chris’s eyes twinkle. So blue. “Guess I deserved that. ’S this why you do the client interviews? Use those ancient incubus skills to, what, make us feel at home?”  
  
“Precisely.” He’s grinning too. Can’t help it. “Though I don’t do all of them. You get either me or Anthony, but he’s with another prospective client. So, me.”  
  
“Not complaining. Not in _any_ fuckin’ way. What do you need to ask?” Chris leans forward in his chair. Props elbows on Sebastian’s desk. Sebastian gulps—merriment’s shining from those oceanic eyes, and Chris has pushed up his sleeves, and the strength of those forearms stands out even when their owner isn’t trying—and stalls for time, flipping open Chris’s file.  
  
Chris says, “I guess you need to start with why I’d come in here? A place like this?”  
  
“You’d be amazed how many people opt to come to, as you put it, a place like this.”  
  
“Oh, shit.” That mouth falls open. Chris has a tremendously expressive face, emotions written in plush lips, distressed eyebrows; Sebastian could watch him forever. Right now he’s grimacing. “Oh, man, Chris, you meatball—well, that’s probably a good example of why, right there—shit, I’m sorry.”  
  
“Meatball? Really?”  
  
“…y’know, no one’s ever asked about that one before. And I use it a lot. I didn’t mean to insult—”  
  
“I know.” Sebastian waves a hand at him. Barely misses his own laptop. Chris Evans is strong and sweet. Sebastian walks into doors and collides with home furnishings on a daily basis. “Don’t worry. You’d be amazed how many people do that, too.”  
  
Chris Evans frowns, moving from abashed to protective in the span of Sebastian’s sentence. “That’s not right. You provide, like, a public service. You make people happy.”  
  
“People and meatballs,” Sebastian suggests, and Chris laughs again. He mentally pats himself on the back. He is good with clients. He can be good with Chris Evans. He can make Chris Evans smile. “I don’t need to know your specific reasons for coming in. I do need to know what you would like from us, any expectations, the type of experience you’re seeking, any potential triggers or areas to avoid, simple preferences, anything we can do to make you more comfortable. That’s our goal. Within reason, of course; our escorts have their own individual preferences and limits, and you _will not_ violate those.”  
  
“Of course not.” Chris is watching his face. “You take care of your people.”  
  
“Our employees,” Sebastian says, “and our clients. Subject to approval from Anthony or myself. Then you become our people too.”  
  
“How’m I doing?”  
  
“Not bad. Eight out of ten.” Liar, his heart points out. Twelve out of ten. Twelve million.  
  
“What’d I lose points for?”  
  
“Insulting yourself. Don’t. Tell me what you want from a first engagement.”  
  
“Myself? Not you, or the agency—? Um, I guess I want—something easy? No sex, not anything like that, I just—I kinda get anxious meeting people, I get all red and sweaty, it’s not pretty—”  
  
You could never be not pretty, Sebastian’s heart thinks.  
  
“—and I’ve got this party to go to tomorrow night, industry thing, here in the city, and I just want someone to lean on, y’know? Someone easy to talk to, and not—y’know, someone who’s not gonna run away when I turn into a sweatball in a suit?”  
  
“Sweatball, meatball…I could make so many jokes about balls right now…so you’re thinking a single night? A party engagement? Upscale, I assume?”  
  
“Yeah, I guess. Why didn’t you?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Make the jokes? You looked like you wanted to.”  
  
“What—oh. It’s a first interview. I try to avoid the subject of a potential client’s balls until we get down to technical specifics. So, easy to talk to, good at industry-party mingling but with the goal of staying by your side, no sexual relations and hence no expectations about that?”  
  
“Um, yeah.” Chris quirks an eyebrow at him, does a thoughtful head-tilt. The bustle of New York flows past them, below in the street. Evening sidles in, radiant and storied as a rose built of neon and concrete and green trees and glittering glass and skyscraper steel. “I don’t suppose you, um, handle clients…”  
  
“I used to. Back when this place was myself and Anthony, starting out. These days, no. Too complicated. I wouldn’t work for your needs in any case.” _Double_ liar, his heart mutters this time. “But we’ve made it policy. Anthony and I don’t take clients.”  
  
“Oh…sorry.”  
  
“You’re asking because you’ve been talking to me, and you feel comfortable with me. It’s understandable.” He shrugs, smiles. His heart, protests ignored, decides to hurt in retaliation. Aching at the return of that daydream: Chris’s hands on him, Chris’s lips softly meeting his at twilight…  
  
“I have your paperwork from downstairs. You specified not _too_ much younger or older—within a decent range—and flexible as far as gender, and, under the notes section, you wrote, ‘someone who likes art or something?’, question mark included.” Sebastian himself likes art, especially modern art. Abstract lines capturing wordless emotion. Broken or blurred or industrial shapes, densely textured and unexpected and raw as life itself.   
  
He wonders whether Chris has found time to visit the Met. Whether Chris has seen the Richard Tuttle exhibit, made of sensual playful textiles, draped and embroidered fabric and rope and wire and paper. One of the pieces flutters like breathing, ethereal and translucent and fragile with hope. Another’s nakedly erotic, unless that’s just in Sebastian’s head; thick coils of velvety rope had made his wrists shiver with longing, though he’s pretty sure that’s projecting. That piece _is_ meant to spur thinking about materiality and sensation, though.  
  
He thinks about looking at that piece with Chris’s hand in his, fingers clasped.  
  
When he jerks himself out of this daydream he smacks his knee on the desk. The desk’s used to this and doesn’t grumble; Sebastian swears out loud in three languages and rubs his kneecap, annoyed with himself. “Sorry. You were saying?”  
  
Chris gives him a curious sort of look. “You okay?”  
  
“Fine. Go on.”  
  
“Well…I just meant, I like people who can talk about, um, whatever they’re into. I like art. And film, obviously. Disney movies. But it doesn’t matter, I mean if you don’t have anyone into art specifically, I just like people who get really passionate about whatever they care about, y’know? How many languages do you speak?”  
  
“How’d you—oh. Ah, two and a half and some bits. Romanian, English, German that’s horribly out of practice, and…mostly profanity, endearments, and some random vocabulary in Russian and Chinese and Spanish. I told my desk to go to the devil, just now. It didn’t listen.”  
  
“Good thing, though. Imagine if it had.”  
  
They both regard solid walnut for a minute. Sebastian wonders whether Chris is also picturing a portal to hell opening up under his office floor, and what that would look like, and what the devil would in fact do with his messy desk. Chris more than likely _isn’t_ pondering these questions alongside him. Sebastian’s brain is a bizarre place.  
  
“That’s pretty impressive,” Chris says finally, and Sebastian has a confused second of wondering about devils and desks before Chris adds, “the languages. Do you study linguistics or something?”  
  
“Oh…no. I’m—most of that’s from growing up in—I’m not—” He trips over bewildered sentences, gives up. “I like languages and words but I don’t formally study any. The Russian and Chinese and Spanish are, ah, from former clients. Back when I. Well. Everything else is just my life.”  
  
“Your life?”  
  
“I was twelve when—never mind, we’re not here to talk about me, we’re here for you. I think I have someone in mind.” What on earth—or in hell—is wrong with him? He doesn’t get personal with prospective clients. He tends to be reserved and polite and sweet when meeting new people. He doesn’t start babbling about his childhood and Communism and escape to Vienna and then America and his first discovery of the taste of blueberries and nights spent with his stepfather’s telescope and the freewheeling blue-diamond expanse of endless stars. He _doesn’t_.  
  
He clutches at reality. His job. “Emily. She’s fairly new—this is part-time for her, in fact, she’s starting out as a photographer, so you should be covered on the art front—she’s Canadian, by the way, very sweet, but she can also swear like a sailor at ice-hockey fouls, so you’ll like that, that is if you don’t mind hockey—only friend-level engagements, she has a boyfriend, not that those two things’re mutually exclusive, I only meant—in any case I think you should get along nicely—you and her, that is, not her boyfriend—” He cuts himself off by shoving a profile at Chris. Chris takes it somewhat bemusedly. Reads.  
  
“She sounds great.”  
  
“Of course she’s great.”  
  
“Okay.” Chris looks up. “How does this work? I come here, she meets me there, what?”  
  
“Okay? Just like that?”  
  
“I trust you.”  
  
“You—well. Thank you.”  
  
“And I’m guessin’ I passed your prospective client interview? Still eight out of ten?”  
  
“Nine and a half,” Sebastian says weakly. “Or three-quarters. Ah, for this level of companionship, she can either meet you at the event, or at a public place of your choosing shortly beforehand. And I’ll need you to sign this…” He hands over Emily’s standard contract, stipulations about acceptable behavior and client-escort boundaries. “And tell me the precise time and location of your event—you said tomorrow night?—and when you expect to be done and where you’d like to meet, and I’ll type that up right now.”  
  
Chris reads over fine print, signs without pausing to think about it, pushes pen and paper back, gives him pertinent details. Sebastian nods, prints out the engagement-specific sheet and the tastefully expensive amount that this will cost his client, and hands those over; Chris signs these too, and Sebastian promptly scans them back into his computer and gives his new client copies.  
  
His new client. Chris Evans. Who’s watching him do routine office-work with a gaze that makes butterflies swoop around Sebastian’s stomach.  
  
“Here. Emily will meet you in your hotel lobby tomorrow night, five-thirty, and if the engagement goes past midnight she—not you—will call me to confirm as much. And—and…I expect that’s everything. So. Ah. Thank you for coming in, it was—nice to—meet you—” He holds out his hand again as a good-bye, coming out from behind his desk.   
  
Chris takes the hand. Doesn’t let go right away, possibly forgetting this social cue. Sebastian’s wits scatter. He’d let Chris Evans hold onto him _forever_.  
  
“What do I have to do,” Chris Evans asks, teasing and bashful, like he’s not sure about the reception but wants desperately to make the joke regardless, “to get a ten from you?”  
  
Fling me down on my sofa and have your wicked way with me. Rub that beard all over my thighs. Lick me everyplace until I’m begging you to stop or keep going and I can’t tell which way is up or down. Kiss me the way you’re looking at me, astonishment and sneaky happiness.   
  
“…sign an autograph? For me, not this agency.”  
  
This is a good excuse for the butterflies. Has to be. Right?  
  
New York City clamors gleefully outside. Lights twinkle; a car honks, mocking him.  
  
Chris laughs lightly, half-embarrassed. “Wasn’t sure you knew who I was.”  
  
Sebastian mock-scowls. Chris hasn’t let go yet. “I know who you are. And even if I didn’t I’d’ve done research before you arrived. I am good at my job.”  
  
“…your job. Yeah. You, um, you are. Good.” Chris releases his hand. “Sure. Anything in particular you want me to sign?”  
  
My heart. No. “Yes, here—” He has a paperback copy of the novel Chris’s directorial debut’d been based on, fortuitously perched on his shelf here where he’d last read it. “Would you?” And then, purely on instinct, “Not if you don’t want to. I said I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, and I mean that.”  
  
Chris’s pen stills, poised over book-pages. Their eyes meet. Chris’s are deeper blue than his own pale-ice, deeper and complicated and kind behind dark hair and that beard that makes him look older than his years. Chris’s lips are parted and wondering.  
  
Those lips answer, while Chris’s gaze stays on his, “I don’t mind. Sebastian, yeah? Any spellings I should know about?”  
  
“No…just, um, the way you think it is…assuming you’re thinking the usual spelling…maybe I should—”  
  
Chris is laughing again, in the hushed-breath sort of way that’s not a big proper laugh. Laughing at _him_ ; oh, well. “No, I got it, you, um, actually put your name on that paperwork, I just remembered. Okay. One sec….here.”  
  
He takes his book. Their fingers brush. For him it’s electric.   
  
He can’t tell about Chris. Can’t tell from that smile.  
  
He walks Chris Evans to the door. Chris says, “Will I hear from you again? I mean, tomorrow, or after?”  
  
“Someone—Jeremy, our receptionist, most likely—will call you an hour before your engagement tomorrow to confirm. And then call you within two days after to ask about client satisfaction.”  
  
“Not you?”  
  
“I…don’t generally…well, sometimes for brand-new clients I can handle the follow-up…”  
  
“I’d like that.”  
  
“Oh,” Sebastian says, “yes. All right, then. Yes,” and then he wonders why he’s crazy, letting himself in for another butterfly-infested roller-coaster ride.   
  
He’s not crazy. Chris needs to feel at ease. Chris knows him already and gets nervous around new people, and so this is practical. Logical.  
  
He sees Chris out, and then shuts his door and falls face-down across his sofa and groans into pillows, exhaling.  
  
His office enfolds him in sympathetic not-quite-silence. Cityscapes outside, undemanding white walls and fluffy rugs and coziness and coffee-mugs in here. Home. His place.  
  
Which hums with traces of Chris’s cologne, lightly spiced and old-fashionedly reliable, over scrubbed-clean soap and large male heat and presence; and Sebastian wants to scream into the cushions, or have an on-the-spot orgasm, or combine the two and have a screaming orgasm here on his sofa with a hand down his too-tight pants.  
  
Instead he opens his book.   
  
Chris has written, in sturdy clear letters, _Sebastian— you get a ten from me, if that helps earn me any more points? I don’t know how the whole three-hundred-year-old incubus rating system works. You can tell me in three days. –Chris._  
  
Plus a tiny sketch. Hastily drawn. Rough but dynamic, pen in motion over paper. A miniscule pointy-horned devil looking bewilderedly at Sebastian’s desk—recognizably his with the coffee-mug and stack of papers—and saying, “Where’d this come from?” while surrounded by flames.  
  
Sebastian laughs out loud, hugs his book, opens it to re-read, hugs it again, and just lies sprawled across his couch making incoherent happy noises for a while.  
  
Anthony knocks and then opens the door without waiting for an answer. “You dying of a caffeine overdose or something, kid?”  
  
“He signed my book.”  
  
“So you like him.”  
  
“I…ah…I deemed him acceptable as a client and set him up with Emily for tomorrow night, yes, the details are in the system. And he signed my _book_.” He stops. Scrutinizes Anthony’s rumpled clothing and megawatt smirk. “What happened to you?”  
  
“I was right about Robert and the code for wanting sex.” Anthony plops down on the sofa, lifts Sebastian’s legs, puts them down atop his lap. This is not unusual; they’d shared smaller spaces, starting out. They’ve shared a bed and a roach-infested apartment. Anthony’s given him advice about silky boxer-briefs and pick-up lines. “He is happily married, true, but it’s an open relationship, she knows every once in a while he wants to check out the other side of the fence, and sometimes she even shares. And he likes it to be uncomplicated, straightforward, laid out from the start.”  
  
“So, us.”  
  
“So us, yep. Me.”  
  
“So—wait, _you_ didn’t—we have a code about this! Clients! Us!”  
  
“Hey, man, _he_ kissed _me_.” Snugness everyplace. “But no, I said that was unprofessional, and I’d see who we got available—”  
  
“Thank you for small mercies.”  
  
“—but if we don’t got anyone available, then you know we said you or I can take clients in emergency situations, and this’s totally an emergency. In my pants.”  
  
“Anthony…”  
  
“Come on, Seb, it’s RDJ! He deserves our best!” With a hand-gesture: _the best? Hey, that’s me!_ “And nobody’s gonna fault me for wanting that one, if he wants some of this!”  
  
“I am not hearing this,” Sebastian grumbles, pulling a couch-cushion over his head. “Not not not. Not you, not today.” Unfair. So unfair. Anthony’s going to get to bang Robert like, according to his own notes, a screen door in a hurricane. Sebastian, who has morals, can barely even look at Chris Evans. Why does Anthony get to be happy?  
  
“Not today, huh?” Anthony pats his thigh. “So, like, you wanna hear about it tomorrow? Seriously, you okay? Did you get a weird vibe from him or something?”  
  
“No.” He’s perfect. Chris Evans is perfect.  
  
“And he signed a book for you…” Anthony considers this. Then lunges.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“Sebastian…you get a ten, huh…incubus? What the fuck is this, you guys have inside jokes already, oh my god, kid, I thought _I_ moved fast.”   
  
“It’s not—we aren’t—I have actual scruples about hooking up with our clients, unlike some people _in this room!”_  
  
“I have scruples. Maybe. ’S a weird word. What _are_ scruples? Sounds like a disease.” Anthony hands back the book. “The kind of disease that keeps you from being happy.”  
  
“I’m happy,” Sebastian mutters, cradling his book possessively, kicking his business partner in the ribs. “This is what happy _and_ being a moral person looks like.”  
  
“You can keep it, then. I’m gettin’ laid.”  
  
“At least pretend you’re going to check our escorts’ availability first. Please.”  
  
“Sure. Hey, Seb.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“So we, or at least you, don’t hook up with clients. But what if you, like…closed his file? What if he stopped being a client? You’d totally hit that.”  
  
“Stop.”  
  
“He’s into you. He drew you a little picture, that’s so cute, he’s like your middle-school crush. It’s a loophole, I’m just saying.”  
  
“ _Please_ stop.” He sounds tragic enough that Anthony does. Which was the goal, though it’s disconcerting to realize how small a percentage of the plaintiveness was an act. “I don’t want to…he’s out of my league anyway, he’s Chris Evans, he’s fantastic, he just wants a friend, I’m going to help him, and yes I would climb him like a tree if he wanted that, but he doesn’t, so leave it alone, okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” Anthony gives in, “okay,” and rubs his leg reassuringly. “I just want you to be happy, kid.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Not that you wouldn’t be. You got me. Right here. Always. _Always_ with you. Looking _out_ for you.”  
  
“I hope you know how disturbing that is,” Sebastian retorts, and fishes out his work-related mobile phone to text Emily the details. Should’ve done that earlier. Ah, well, only a few minutes off.   
  
He’s allowed a few minutes. He’s allowed that much: to stop and breathe and look at the art Chris Evans drew for him, to smile wistfully, to wrap those candy-hued daydreams carefully up in bright tissue-paper in his heart to be drawn out whenever he needs some color. He’s got that much; he doesn’t get to selfishly crave more. He’ll be able to help Chris Evans.  
  
Anthony wants him to be happy. Thinking about helping Chris, he is.


	3. saturday night, sunday, monday morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sebastian spends a lot of time on the phone, takes a much-deserved relaxing bath, and has very colorful fantasies.

Emily calls precisely on time—even two minutes early—Saturday night. Sebastian, lying on his office sofa and half-heartedly distracting himself with a biography of James Dean, doesn’t have to lunge for his work mobile because it’s already sitting on his chest. “Everything okay?”  
  
“Everything’s peachy, boss. You worry too much.” That Canadian accent adds a scolding lilt to her words. “He’s a gentleman. Old-fashioned and romantic.”  
  
“You called early. It’s my job to worry. Romantic?” He’s alone in the office—well, ninety-nine percent alone; the faithful Don’s downstairs—because they do trade off nights and check-ins, and Anthony’s gone home. Sebastian’s on many occasions offered him one of the antique hotel’s upper floors, which is what he himself uses for living space, but Anthony only laughs and refuses to give up his rent-controlled place amid jazz bars and speakeasies.  
  
“No, it didn’t turn into any other kind of engagement. The contract specified friends, and I really think he simply wanted companionship. He held doors for me and carried my purse, though, stuff like that. Sweet.” She pauses. “I think he’s lonely.”  
  
Sebastian has also come to this conclusion. Chris’s eyes had sparkled, in his office, with telling delight at the ease of their back-and-forth. “How’d the party go?”  
  
“Resplendent.” With a post-event yawn. “Gorgeous dresses. Film-industry higher-ups. Great food. Chocolate-dipped strawberries. Decadent mousse in tiny rich-people cups. You’d’ve loved it. He was right that he gets nervous; some sort of social anxiety, I think. He’s okay once you’re on a topic that he feels comfortable with, but he worries constantly about what people expect from him, shining-star new director, you know. I had to get a few conversations off the ground, but that’s exactly what he needed from us, he said as much. He even called me a cab to get home, so I’m back at my apartment. Very punctual.”  
  
Some clients aren’t. Chris has evidently ensured that Emily arrived home well before the midnight rule, which isn’t even hard-and-fast; as long as she had checked in of her own volition and didn’t signal distress in any way, Sebastian would’ve been fine with extending the appointment if she also was. But Chris has taken their rules seriously. “Anything I should know?”  
  
“Honestly, no. He can get a bit physical when he’s laughing—I don’t mean sexual, I just mean his hands go everywhere and he might accidentally grab you—but it’s cute. When we talked about photography he was genuinely interested in my work. I’d see him again, same level of engagement, if he asks.”  
  
“Hmm. Do we need an in-person chat about this one?”  
  
“No, unless you think so?” Emily sounds surprised. They require in-person check-in after engagements involving sex—sometimes Sebastian or Anthony notices consequences that the escorts haven’t or haven’t wanted to report over the phone—but generally not for friend-level appointments. “Is something wrong?”  
  
Yes. No. Yes for no reason he can put a finger on. Emily wants to spend more time with Chris Evans. Who apparently flings hands everyplace and might accidentally grab the person beside him, while laughing.   
  
“…no. I suppose not. I just want to make sure we’re taking good care of him, if he’s that anxious in social situations—” He hastily backtracks. “Not that you wouldn’t. You clearly gave him exactly what he needed, thank you, I’ll see you Monday afternoon, and I’ll let you know if he asks for a second engagement.”  
  
“Are _you_ all right, then?” Emily inquires. “You sound distracted. Are you getting enough sleep?”  
  
Likely not, given how many times he’d re-read Chris’s note in his book before bed. “Coffee replaces sleep, yes? I’m sure I’ve read that someplace.”  
  
“I really don’t think so. Am I your last one for tonight? Go to bed.”  
  
“No, I’m staying up for Hemsworth at two, he’s at a medieval re-enactment, of all things, with the very attractive English boy who keeps requesting him, followed by what’s almost certainly going to be Viking-inspired sex. I’m trying not to think about it. I’m fine, you know my position on naps, I’ll see you Monday.”  
  
“You and naps,” Emily says cheerfully, “you’re my favorite cat, boss,” and hangs up on him.  
  
Sebastian drops the phone on the sofa, flings a melodramatic arm over his eyes, and sighs at his ceiling. And then picks up his book again. Tries to read. He’s got a couple more hours before the report on enthusiastic Viking sex.  
  
He’s now picturing Chris Evans plus Viking sex.  
  
Chris Evans. Plus Viking sex. In his office. Chris’s kind eyes above a skimpy leather warrior’s outfit, showing off those muscles, powerful but oh so sweet, a gentle conqueror as he eases Sebastian’s trembling body to the sofa and—  
  
He’s a terrible person. Chris Evans is a gentleman. A sweetheart, as just described in detail by his employee. A man who simply wants a friend to lean on.  
  
His office has a separate bathroom. Small, barely a sink and toilet, but nevertheless.  
  
He looks at his bathroom.  
  
He locks his office door.  
  
Two minutes later, he’s shoved his jeans and silky scarlet underwear down, he’s got a hand around his cock and another one playing with his own ass and the miniature bullet vibrator from the bottom desk drawer, the one he keeps here because it never hurts to be prepared; he’s imagining the scrape of Chris’s beard, Chris’s teeth, along his throat, and he’s picturing Chris’s big hand instead of his own caressing his cock, smearing dripping-wet desire up and down his length, lazy assured voice telling him when to come, on command—  
  
He makes a shivering desperate sound when his climax hits, white heat pulsing between his own fingers, across his stomach.  
  
After his heart slows down, the guilt sets in. He flees to his bathroom. Cleans away evidence. Makes a face at himself in the mirror. Overhead lights gaze down with pale brilliant concern.  
  
“Okay,” he says, “okay, it’s fine, I’m professional, I can be professional, it’s one time, no one has to know, nobody’s being hurt by this, we just won’t let this happen again,” and his reflection raises eyebrows skeptically back.  
  
He runs back out to the sofa and grabs his work phone just in time to catch his other employee asking to extend this night’s engagement overnight, because they’re having so much fun and would both like to continue. Sebastian snaps, “Yes, fine, we’ll bill him for it, _you_ come see me once you can walk straight, tomorrow,” and hangs up, and then immediately feels guilty all over again.   
  
He closes everything up, instead. Makes a note in this client’s file for billing purposes and future reference. Shuts off lights. Tries futilely to send Don home, which never works. His security checks every alarm and reminds him that his former clients know this address, and although they don’t know Sebastian lives above the floors of the agency, the one who’s made those irritated phone calls might decide to break in and express displeasure or throw a horde of small flesh-eating spiders through a window.  
  
“Spiders?” Sebastian says.  
  
“I’m sleeping in one of your guest rooms,” Don says, alarms in place and ears alert for spider-related threats.  
  
“Whatever makes you happy,” Sebastian concedes, and wanders tiredly off to the eighth floor, which is home.  
  
Home glows with light and shadow when he flips the switch on. Home sprawls across the entire old hotel floor, which he’d had remodeled during the renovations, and home reaches out to him in colorful science-fiction bookshelves and much-loved saucepans, in space-black granite countertops and a sapphire-wool knitted blanket one of his mother’s friends had sent from Vienna, flung over the back of his couch. Home is his iPad and Apple TV because Sebastian’s a willing minion in the Apple ranks, and home is the cool musical joy of his baby grand piano in the corner near the floor-to-ceiling windows, which’d been original nineteenth-century features and open up to show the city like moving artwork. Home accepts his shoes, kicked off near the door, and his weight when he falls into bed.  
  
His bed’s an antique as well. He loves objects with stories to tell. He loves the vine-twist dark tall bedposts and the deep solid drawers underneath. Those drawers hold quite a few toys, not that Sebastian’s ever let any clients up here, even back when he did take clients. He’d always either gone to the client in question or utilized one of this hotel’s luxurious but small rooms for that purpose on the fourth and fifth floors. He and Anthony’d both poured money into the dilapidated place: rescuing, redecorating, making it theirs.  
  
Tomorrow he’ll get up early and go to the gym and make Anthony handle the billing issue—Sebastian’s not hopeless with accounting but doesn’t enjoy it, preferring words—and then apologize to Hemsworth for being brusque over the phone, and then, he decides, he’ll lock himself in his office and nap for at least part of the afternoon, before their evening appointments start up. Maybe he’ll even have time to write. He’s been missing that. The half-done short story about cats and time-travel sits on his laptop accusingly.  
  
He tucks himself up in his sheets like a human-shaped burrito—he’s not a fan of being cold—and thinks about time-travel.  
  
Which means he thinks about Vikings.  
  
Which means he thinks about Chris Evans, and fantasies.  
  
He’s tired enough to not do anything about a round two, but his cock makes its interest known, shifting in his pajama pants.   
  
And then he groans out loud, because Chris Evans. Chris Evans needs a client satisfaction follow-up. Which Sebastian agreed to do. Because he is a masochist in more ways than one, evidently.  
  
He’ll just have to pull himself together, be a grown-up business-owning person, and make that call. Tomorrow. In the morning.  
  
He falls asleep wondering vaguely if Chris Evans ever thinks about time-traveling cats and Vikings, and remembers none of his dreams.  
  
In the morning he does not call Chris. He continues with great resolution not to call Chris: while working out, while showering, while avoiding Hemsworth’s post-sex insufferable grin and asking the usual check-in questions regarding consent, bruises and bites, mutual satisfaction, and so on. He also apologizes for his own tone. Hemsworth shrugs and asks, “What tone, I was distracted, mate,” and shows off the hickey on his thigh. Sebastian keeps himself from throwing a sofa-pillow at his escort, and sends him away.  
  
He goes out for lunch with Anthony, who has found a new Brazilian spot with fabulous barbecued meat of various types, and then comes back—stomach full of chicken and spice and cheese bread—and purposefully scoops up his laptop instead of picking up his phone.  
  
He means to work on the half-done story, but finds himself starting another one. Romance. Historical. Two warriors meeting on a battlefield. Instant connection. But their tribes’re enemies, one of them’ll have to kill the other, so how to fix this—obviously the main characters’ll have sex in a cave after cuddling close for shared body heat, that’s self-evident, but how to resolve the familial conflict for a happy ending…  
  
He resurfaces to a looming sense of neglected responsibilities and the sound of Anthony knocking loudly on his door. “Seb? You around?”  
  
“I’m right here.”  
  
“Not mentally you’re not, I’ve been here like ten minutes.”  
  
“You have not.”  
  
“Three at least. Writing again? Can I see? Did you get my emails?”  
  
“Yes, no, and…why did you send me six emails? These last two just say my name. In capital letters.”  
  
“Knew you weren’t reading them. Tell me what you think.”  
  
“You’re going out with Robert tomorrow?”  
  
“He plays golf, I play golf, he invited me, he said he wants to see how I swing a club. You cool with this?” Anthony’s eyes say he’ll turn down the invitation if Sebastian truly has unswayable ethical objections. They’d agreed on this: they don’t take clients these days. Favoritism. Lack of objectivity when making business decisions. “I haven’t said yes yet, I’m gonna, but you can talk me out of it if you want.”  
  
“I just think…look, you know all my arguments. And I know we said we could still see people in emergencies. And he’s a new client; you’re not taking him away from anyone. And it’s RDJ himself. I’m…not happy about it.” He shrugs, glances out at the city street in dwindling sunshine. Cars zip by, bustling. Pedestrians stroll under trees and light. “But I won’t say no.”  
  
Anthony frowns. Line between eyebrows. A perceptive head-tilt. “You okay?”  
  
“Tired, I think. I’m off tonight, it’s fine, I’ll catch up on sleep then.”  
  
“It’s already five-thirty.”  
  
“It is not!—oh. Hmm. That clock is wrong. It’s lying to you.”  
  
“Nice try. Seriously, go have a spa day or something, I know how much you like fluffy robes and massages and coconut oil or whatever it is you get rubbed all over you.” Anthony makes a shooing gesture at him. “See you tomorrow, kid.”  
  
“Only four years younger than you,” Sebastian grumbles, but takes his laptop and goes.  
  
He still does not call Chris. He needs to. He told Chris it’d be within two days; it’s not a problem yet. He’ll have to do it first thing tomorrow, that’s all.  
  
Right now he _is_ tired, and Anthony’s suggestion sounds spectacular.  
  
While he can’t book a spa day at six pm this same night, he _can_ run a bath in his oversized bathtub, and he _can_ light lavender and vanilla candles in various candleholders, and he can pour excessive amounts of pampering oils into his steam-swirled tub next to the sea-glass patterned wall. The tub’s practically big enough to swim in; Sebastian shamelessly indulges his hedonistic side now that he’s got the money. Scents of chamomile and neroli and rose-hips drift upward and mingle, perfuming the air.  
  
The tub had also been a work-related necessity. Several of Sebastian’s former clients enjoyed how prettily he surrenders, how sweetly he can cry and whimper and moan. He’s known soreness.   
  
He’s enjoyed those nights too, of course. He’s not claiming otherwise. He knows exactly how much he craves those sensations: being bent over someone’s knee, being tied up and gagged and used in every hole, being given orders and made to obey and praised for doing well, so that his body flushes and trembles and goes molten at each sign of approval. He’s shameless about that as well, in bed.  
  
Or he has been. It’s been a while. He’s been practicing self-control. Besides, the agency’s been busy.  
  
Right now the soreness isn’t physical, or not entirely. More an all-encompassing emptiness, elusive and unfulfilled. He knows not to let it get worse than this, he really does, he’s been there and he doesn’t want to go back. He touches his wrist, where scars hide thin and silver-white, invisible unless one already knows and goes looking. He doesn’t see his therapist regularly anymore, but he does make infrequent appointments, sometimes simply to say hello and bring her flowers. He should do that this week. Especially if he’s hit the point of snapping at his employees and avoiding phone calls. She’ll like the flowers.  
  
And he can fix minor stumbles. That’s in his power. The world won’t, realistically speaking, fall apart because he’s fucked up in a couple small ways.  He apologized and Hemsworth didn’t seem bothered, and Chris Evans can be contacted in the morning. He’s doing okay. Not letting anyone down.  
  
He breathes in heat and meditative scents; breathes out, lets anxiety fall away. Shedding layers of the day.  
  
The water’s hot and safe. It caresses his skin. He tips his head back, lets it play with his hair. Tension ebbs slowly, drawn out from his body.  
  
He splashes a foot, idly. He lets the oils and the heat soak into his skin, his bones. Candlelight flickers peaceful and low.  
  
He nearly falls asleep, floating.  
  
After a while he has an idea about the historical romance—what if the feud is based on a decades-old elopement, but everyone assumed it was an abduction, but there’s an unread letter in a box somewhere—and gets up, dripping, and scribbles down notes, bundled into a giant cloud-spun white robe, sipping tea.  
  
Monday morning he’s feeling better—not perfectly settled, but better—and he resolves to call Chris and face that personal hurdle head-on, because he does love this job and the way they can help people, and he wants to know that he’s helped Chris.   
  
Who picks up right away. “Hello?”  
  
“Hi,” Sebastian says, “this is Sebastian, from—”  
  
“Oh, right, yeah, hi, how are you?” Enthusiasm billowing across the connection. Puppies and kittens and Disney musicals bursting into life. “I was thinking maybe I should call you, if—”  
  
“No, no, sorry, my fault. We were…somewhat busy yesterday. Did you ask how I am? Isn’t that my line?”  
  
“What, I can’t care about how you’re doing?”  
  
“Well…I suppose yes? You can? But I do need to ask you about Saturday night and how you feel we met your needs.”  
  
“Oh, man, Emily’s great.” Sebastian can picture him talking: smiling, waving hands, eager and genuine. “She knows a lot about photography, light and shadow and composition, and she looked out for me at the party like a pro, I mean, I guess that’s her job, but. I appreciate it. Just really great.”  
  
“I’ll tell her as much. Would you say you were satisfied, then? With the night, with our overall taking care of you, other than my own delay in calling you back?”  
  
“Wait, what even,” Chris protests, “you said within two days after, and that was Saturday night, this’s Monday morning, not like you’re even late. And you said you don’t even normally do these follow-ups. Which, thank you, by the way. I forgot to say it before.”  
  
Chris remembers what he said? “It’s not a problem. It’s honestly not; because I don’t do them much, I like it. Talking to our clients. After the first time. I am supposed to ask you to rate your satisfaction on a scale from one to ten, according to Jeremy’s usual questions.” It’s not unprecedented for Sebastian or Anthony to handle one of the brand-new client follow-ups, but it’s not usual either; Jeremy’d given him a curious look when he’d said he’d be calling Chris. “So…can I have a number?”  
  
“Why, Sebastian,” Chris teases, terrible attempt at a Southern-belle accent interrupted by snickering at his own joke, “did you just ask for my number?”  
  
Sebastian’s smiling so widely his cheeks hurt. “I don’t know,” he flips back, batting eyelashes though Chris can’t see, “I think I asked whether you were satisfied with me—us—Miss O’Hara.”  
  
“Oh, I’m satisfied, all right,” Chris says, innuendo ludicrously heavyhanded, and somehow they’re both laughing, Sebastian in his office and Chris wherever he is, connected by a phone call and giggling like children.  
  
“Okay,” Sebastian says eventually, breathless, giddy, “I really do have to ask, though. For us.”  
  
“Totally a ten, then, but you know that. Emily’s great and you’re great. Hell, even your receptionist seems great, though he sort of just grunted at me when I got there.”  
  
“He does that. You have to speak his language.”  
  
“Like you? You speak all the languages. Any new ones today?”  
  
“Not in the last three days, no.” He might have to brush up on his German, or learn Irish endearments. Chris Evans is Irish-Italian. And he doesn’t know any Gaelic phrases yet, and that might be useful. Sometime. In the future. In general. “Any comments or questions for me?”  
  
“Actually, yeah.” Chris must be going outside; Sebastian hears a screen door swing shut, while his heart drops to the vicinity of his toes. Chris has a comment? A question? Something he didn’t do? Something he didn’t do right?  
  
“Sorry for the pause,” Chris says, “just had to get away from my mom, she kept trying to figure out who I was talking to. Yeah, um, I was wondering, if I was going to be in New York again, filming on location, next month, could I make another appointment? Or even a few? We’ll be there for like two months.”  
  
Sebastian’s heart bobs back up and does somersaults. Two months’ worth. “Oh. Oh! Yes, of course. I can tell Emily, she did say she’d be happy to spend more time with you, if—”  
  
“I like her.” Chris goes quiet for a minute. He must be in some sort of backyard; a bird calls in the background, and wind rustles around. “But I was…sort of wondering…sometimes I want…do you have anyone more…”  
  
“Emily’s lovely,” Sebastian defends. He’ll shield his employees to the death. In the face of clients. In the face of volcanos. Earthquakes. Any sort of disaster, man or natural. But he should probably be tactful regarding said clients, so: “More experienced, perhaps? She is fairly new, not that that’s her fault.”  
  
“…more…masculine?” He can _hear_ Chris blushing. He listens, fascinated. He’s never known bashfulness could be audible. Or quite so adorable. “I just…I mean, you’re discreet anyway, and I…sometimes I want someone I can’t…someone who’s stronger, who could…someone who can push back a little bit, y’know? Not like I want to get into fights with the guy, but I want someone who can give and take if it gets kinda rough, I don’t mean physical, or not just physical, I mean like making me keep up with him. A challenge. Sometimes I like guys who’re, like, _guys_ …football and beer and, y’know…oh, fuck, this’s making zero fucking sense…”  
  
“No, I’ve got it. I’ve got a few ideas.” His mouth’s on autopilot. His brain’s shut off. Chris Evans had indicated a willingness to explore all gender options, but it’s one thing to see this on paperwork, and another to hear the words in that expressive Boston-boy accent. Chris Evans likes guys. Chris Evans likes strong men, men who can keep up with him.   
  
Sebastian’s got a lot of muscle. Sebastian wouldn’t be afraid to keep up with him. To pin him down and kiss him everyplace; to be pinned down in turn and nestled under that commanding muscle, strength for strength…  
  
Fuck. No. No no no. He dives for his laptop. Professional. Right. He can handle that.  
  
“I’ve…got…let’s see…” One of the Pauls? Maybe Paul R, the laid-back humor and the outdoorsman’s beard he’s currently sporting might work well, but he’s already committed—Hemsworth? No, Hemsworth’s too all-around nice, and Chris could use a bit of an edge, that challenge—Pratt?  
  
Well. Damn. That’s actually perfect. Chris Pratt, Pratt to most of the staff, has a healthy appreciation for manly activities like camping and football, has impressive shoulders, has a sarcastic sense of humor, and has a sweetness at the core of him that’ll appeal to someone like Chris. Pratt is happy to just be friends, guys hanging out together, but is open to sex if the client’s wishes turn that way. And is not otherwise booked for most days in the upcoming month, not yet.  
  
Sebastian’s heart gives an unhappy little twinge. He refuses to call this disappointment. It isn’t. It _isn’t_. Chris is his client.  
  
He gives Chris the details. Calmly. Evenly. Without thumping his head against his desk.  
  
“Sounds perfect.”  
  
Of course it does.  
  
Sebastian hates being good at his job.  
  
He goes over details for a few more minutes, emails Chris with Pratt’s standard contract and provisions, tells Chris to either sign and email back or stop by in person when he’s here. Chris considers this for a second. “I can do that?”  
  
“One of my people, now. Didn’t I say?”  
  
“So you’ll take care of me.”  
  
“That is how this arrangement works. Anything else I can help you with, sir?” He’s pushing buttons and he knows it, with that tone.  
  
Chris lets out a noise that’s half amused, half a growl. Sends shivers down Sebastian’s spine. Turns his body into a lightning-rod of arousal. “You keep askin’ questions like that and I’m gonna say yes.”  
  
“I’m only here to make you more comfortable.”  
  
“I can think of a way you can do that, but you’re settin’ me up with someone else.”  
  
“I told you before that I have rules.” He’s not going to assume Chris is serious. Chris Evans is lonely. Chris Evans likes the way Sebastian talks to him. Chris consequently flirts back without meaning it. “I need rules, sometimes. To keep me in line.”  
  
Chris swears out loud. Emphatically so.  
  
“Sorry!” Sebastian says instantly. “I only meant—it’s instinct, it’s the job, I used to—sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you or—”  
  
“No, my fault, I wasn’t thinking—I forgot you don’t—fuck.” Chris sighs. “Change of subject. Can I ask you about the name? Or the lack—”  
  
“—thereof, yes.” Sebastian grimaces at his desk. “This agency…we thought about combining our names, but everything sounded too much like porn star pseudonyms, Mackstan, Stackie…we tried coming up with random words, but mine were always things like ‘winter’ or ‘blueberry’ and his were always, oh, ‘falcon’ or ‘redwing,’ and The Winter Falcon sounded like an aristocratic medieval hunting troupe. And then we realized we already had clients, and people kept just calling us by name, you know, if you need these services go see Anthony and Sebastian…”  
  
“So you’re just Anthony and Sebastian.”  
  
“Who we are, and what we do. Except we keep wanting to change it, now that we’ve got employees. Anthony and Sebastian and Pratt and Emily and Paul and the other Paul…”  
  
Chris is laughing.  
  
“We might have a problem,” Sebastian finishes, smug. Chris is laughing because of _him_. “Oh—Anthony’s here, I should go, we have a meeting about redecorating two of our rooms—I like bright colors—was there anything else? Anything you need.”  
  
“Bright colors, huh? I can see that. Hear it, maybe. In your voice. Nah, I think you covered it, I’ll stop by and see you next month? I can email everything too, but, um, if you want—I don’t know what I’m sayin’. I can drop stuff off?”  
  
Chris thinks about his voice? Chris thinks he sounds like bright colors?   
  
“…yes, of course, come by any time, we’ll be here. And then we can work out specific dates for you to see Pratt, in person.”  
  
“…yeah. Okay, um, should I let you go?”  
  
“Probably. What do you think about doing one room in jewel-tones? Emerald, sapphire, faded gold, amethyst and plum…sort of peacock colors, now that I think about it…Anthony thinks I have the fashion sense of a thirteenth-century Venetian hipster.”  
  
“I like it.” Chris shifts position, exhales. “I can see you in a space like that. Surrounded by color. And books.”  
  
“Very many books. Science and science-fiction and history and fairytales.”  
  
“Everything fabulous,” Chris says, “like, yeah, fables. Stories. Treasure-chests.”  
  
“Plus my iPhone. I love my iPhone. That’s fabulous as well.” Chris laughs more. Sebastian grins. “I unfortunately very much do have to go, but I can walk into a decorator meeting knowing you’re on my side. Thank you. I’ll see you in a month.”  
  
“Four weeks,” Chris says softly, “and, yeah, no problem, I’ll be on your side any time. I’ll see you soon.”


	4. saturday evening, four weeks later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sebastian offers advice to an employee and receives a visit from Chris Evans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halfway done, or I think so, anyway. It's me. There might be nine chapters. We'll see.

Saturday evening, four weeks later—not that he's counting time from his conversation with Chris, that'd be silly, wouldn't it, and not professionally detached at all—Sebastian finishes having a quiet conversation with the other Paul—B, not R—about _not_ being overly polite and accommodating with difficult clients, and tells him to take the week off; Paul nods and apologizes about that too, and Sebastian shakes his head and says “Don’t.”   
  
He knows exactly how that inclination goes. He shares it.   
  
He’s younger than Paul—he’s younger than several of their escorts—but he doesn’t feel that way at the moment; he smiles and cheers his employee up with a ridiculous story about his own past sexual escapades and saying yes to the client who’d originally wanted to cuddle and eat McDonald’s Happy Meals, and who’d only mid-appointment suggested using Sebastian as a table, human furniture, which ordinarily he might be happy to do but had felt a bit silly with French fries involved.   
  
Paul says, “You didn’t truly do that one. Did you? You didn’t.”  
  
“I did,” Sebastian says, “because I was a lot younger and I was an out-of-work actor with a terrible part-time catering job and this nice older client wanted to give me dazzling amounts of money. Look, the moral of this story is, um, we’ll take care of you, that’s why you’ve got me and Anthony, you don’t have to say yes to anything you’d rather not do, otherwise you end up with ketchup in frightening places, okay?”  
  
Paul regards him with affectionate British concern. “Yes, thank you. Every time you tell me these stories I worry a bit more, you know.”  
  
“Which is why I’m now retired and spend my time looking out for all of you. Go home and rest.”  
  
Paul heads out, moving gingerly but not injured. Sebastian’d checked him over to make sure. The office shakes out its antique bones, near-empty and loosened up: escorts mainly out on appointments, Anthony spending the day with Robert—for the fifth time; this has become a habit over the past weeks, though this is the first day they’re heading to Robert’s own apartment, not a golf tournament or a hotel or a fancy restaurant—and unruffled calm on the disgruntled former client front. New York City hums placidly along outside his window, busy as a beehive in summer, honeyed by early evening light.   
  
He wanders over to his big picture window. Spies a woman in an animal-print coat who seems to be taking either a very large spotted cat or a very small leopard for a walk. It’s New York; could be either. The cat’s prowling along on its leash with every sign of enjoyment.  
  
Sebastian _likes_ cats. He’s mildly allergic but would tolerate the sniffles and medication to have a fluffy monster on his lap, purring. He won’t get one as long as he’s living upstairs; no way to guarantee a client wouldn’t be even more allergic than himself, and cat hair and dander would be inevitably omnipresent in the office. But he adores Scottish Folds and their precious ears and cheerful faces.  
  
He watches the woman and her possible baby leopard as they stroll casually down the sidewalk. He wants to run down and pet it in the lowering sunshine. He wants to learn its name and scratch its cute little spotted chin.  
  
They turn a corner, so he turns away too, idly considering the rest of his evening while he waits for Anthony to check in. He hears a footstep—Paul coming back? a question?—and glances at his door.  
  
And then trips over nothing at all. Grabs the corner of his desk. Gasps a word in Romanian that’d prompt his loving mother to wash his mouth out with soap.  
  
Because: Chris Evans. Filling up his doorway. In a too-small red clinging shirt and equally clinging jeans, and that shirt’s showing a hint of tattoo along his collarbone and—  
  
“Hey!” Chris Evans dives across the room. Big hands on Sebastian’s shoulders. Steadying. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I thought you heard me, fuck, ’re you okay?”  
  
“Fine, sorry—” He extricates himself from embarrassment and Chris’s compassionate grip. “It’s not you. It’s the invisible rock on my floor. I trip over those all the time.”  
  
“Yeah, I’ve heard those can be real bastards.” Chris mimes kicking the air. “There, I moved it for you. Were you expecting someone else, though?”  
  
“I appreciate that. No, I was talking to one of our escorts earlier, I thought he might’ve come back, but then you were here. You _are_ here. Since when are you here?”  
  
“You said I could stop by.” Chris brandishes papers at him. “Sent you the electronic version, but I wanted to drop these off in person.”  
  
In person. Dressed like Sebastian’s brand-new favorite fantasy. Powerful biceps, broad shoulders, tantalizing glimpses of ink over skin. “…right. Yes, thank you, I can take those and we can discuss scheduling.”  
  
Chris watches him with much the same attentiveness Sebastian’d been giving the possible leopard, as he slips signed papers into their folder-homes and opens up Pratt’s schedule on his laptop. Chris almost certainly isn’t daydreaming about petting him. Stroking him. Putting him on a leash. Oh, fuck, putting him on a _leash,_ with a collar around his neck…   
  
He buys himself time to calm the fuck down, sitting safely behind his desk. “You said you were filming here? For two months?”  
  
“Yeah, it’s a neat story, kinda small-scale, about kids and being gifted, real good heart, y’know? I like directing films like that. Not big blockbuster epics, I’m not remotely qualified for anything that massive, but about people.”  
  
“Telling the stories of people,” Sebastian says, “their hearts, their lives. That’s important.”  
  
“You get it.” Chris nods at him: recognition, appreciation, a compliment. “Not surprised. You take care of people for a living. And you take care of me.”  
  
“I try,” Sebastian says airily, “but I could do better given some warning before you arrive. Fix you a drink. Put on music. Not trip over my invisible rock. _Would_ you like a drink, by the way?” Reckless, reckless and dangerous, but Chris’s words have slid too close to his heart, humming like golden arrow-points, lodged in between beats.  
  
“Got any decent beer?”  
  
Sebastian glares at him, mock-offended. “Don’t I keep telling you we aim to please?” He can stand up without giving himself away at this point; he pokes around the mini-fridge and beverage-cart for a minute. “Here.”  
  
“Thanks. What did you make? That looks complicated.”  
  
“It isn’t. Blueberry vodka, lemonade, fresh mint. Easy.”  
  
“Yeah, if you’re a magician. So you’re a bartender, you’re a counselor, you’re good at talking to me…is there anything you can’t do?”  
  
“Ride a motorcycle. I tried once. I fell off. Twice.” He takes a sip, tastes berries and summer, adds, “I make a legendary spaghetti bolognese, however.”  
  
“You fell off a motorcycle?”  
  
“Twice, yes. While it was moving, though not very fast. I thought it’d be fun to learn how—and we had a client at the time who was into bikes and wanted me to ride around on the back of his—but clearly I’m not meant for those particular animals.”  
  
“Were you okay?”  
  
Sebastian covers his sudden flush, the heat in his cheeks at Chris’s intent gaze, by accidentally finishing half his drink. “Embarrassed. A few bruises. I did say it wasn’t going very fast. We should get back to the reason you’ve come in. What sort of appointment were you thinking, with Pratt? An excursion, a sports bar, Central Park?”  
  
And Chris Evans seems startled. As if he’s forgotten for an instant the nature of their relationship.  
  
Sebastian hasn’t. Sebastian can’t allow himself to forget. Chris has come to him for companionship and support. Sebastian won’t let him down.  
  
“I, um,” Chris says. “I guess—I don’t know? Sports bar, maybe? You said he likes football?”  
  
“Pratt’s a Seahawks fan.”  
  
“Oooh,” Chris decides, shaking his head. “Ouch, okay, we’re gonna have words, then. Should be fun. And I, um, I’m not opposed to—I mean, it’s been a while, with a guy, but maybe—the stuff you sent said he’s available for—”  
  
“Sex, yes.” Sebastian resolutely does not kick his desk or stomp his feet and wail about how much he himself is available for sex. He’s not, these days. Too complicated, with clients.   
  
He reminds himself of that one more time. And then one more. Reinforcement. “He’s happy to provide that service too, if you’d like.”  
  
Chris drains the rest of his beer in one smooth impressive swallow. “Can we sort of see how the night goes and take it from there?”  
  
“Yes, as long as I hear verbal confirmation from him if you decide to pursue that option.” He checks Pratt’s calendar for open nights, possible overnights. “What’s your directorial schedule like? Would Thursday or Friday work?”  
  
“Thursday night, I think. We’re shooting a night scene Friday. Nothin’ too late, but still.”  
  
“Then we’ll go with that. I’ll send you a list of possible bars; you can pick.”  
  
“Anywhere you suggest is gonna be great.”  
  
“Such faith you place in me,” Sebastian notes lightly, finishing his drink, blushing. Chris Evans turns him into a wide-eyed clumsy teenager again. “I shall have to be careful not to lead you astray. You’d follow me. Like a puppy.”  
  
“Oh really,” Chris says. “I’m your puppy? Oh, it’s _on_ now. You’re a cat person, right? You seem like a cat person.”  
  
“I like both, but yes, definitely a cat person. If that’s a problem for you I’ll make sure to knock over your beer and sink claws into your thigh.”  
  
“What happened to the whole aiming to please me angle?”  
  
Sebastian’s rational brain cells depart momentarily—himself pleasing Chris, yes, _oh_ yes—and regroup with, “You said you enjoyed a challenge. Why am I a cat person? You’re not wrong, but I’m curious.”  
  
“Big eyes, fluffy, independent, playful, a little wary about lettin’ people get close but awesome once you do. And you were totally watching birds outside your window.”  
  
“Fluffy—? I was _not_ watching birds!”  
  
“But you like looking out windows.”  
  
“Stories,” Sebastian says, “and people.” How can Chris Evans know him so well? How can Chris Evans see him so easily, and why’s his heart giving a flutter at the thought, bird’s-wings lifting on a breeze?  
  
“Yeah,” Chris says, “exactly,” and then they just sit there for a moment gazing at each other across the desk, over the line of Sebastian’s laptop.  
  
The moment extends. The laptop radiates electronic contentment. Chris’s smile grows a fraction. Sebastian has the oddest impulse to duck his head, to blush more, to peek shyly back up at Chris and smile in return. Of course, he also has impulses that involve dropping to his knees at Chris’s feet and tipping his head back and letting Chris run fingers through his hair.  
  
Chris’s smile turns a bit anxious from continuing silence.  
  
Sebastian bites his lip. “Ah…do you have plans? For tonight?”  
  
“Um…meeting up with some of my cast and crew back at the hotel for drinks, after this? Unless you—if you’re—”  
  
“No, no, I just thought—if you haven’t seen much of New York before—”  
  
“I’ve been to the Met and MoMA but that was a couple years ago and I do want to make it back while we’re here, I don’t know if you—”  
  
“You should at least find the time to see the new rooftop installation—”  
  
They stop, tangled in each other’s words. Chris laughs. Sebastian’s cheeks burn. His laptop smirks at their incompetence.  
  
Chris seems a bit lost, casting about for a new topic after this debacle; Sebastian leaps in. This _is_ his job. He can do this. “It’s practically dinnertime—if you like hot dogs there’s this fabulous food truck, they should be only about a block away now—they put everything you can imagine on top, pineapple and teriyaki sauce or guacamole and red peppers or, um, tater tots and cheese or—and if you don’t want, um, beef, they also have chicken and apple, and an awesome vegetarian—what?”  
  
“Nothing.” Chris Evans is shaking his head, grinning. “Never seen anyone so excited about hot dogs.”  
  
“Then you don’t know the right people.”  
  
“Y’know, I’m starting to think that’s true….want to show me where it is?”  
  
“Oh…I…I can’t. I’m still working. I have to be here when Anthony gets back, and I have to be here before then _because_ he’s not back.”   
  
“So I’ll bring you something. What do you want?”  
  
“No,” Sebastian says, horrified. He genuinely hadn’t been fishing for the offer. “No, that’s—”  
  
“You like this place. You said.”  
  
“No, I do, but…I…really can’t. Unethical. You’re my client. Please don’t buy me things.”  
  
“Even your favorite hot dog?”  
  
“Don’t make it even harder to say no.”  
  
An unreadable expression flashes through Chris’s eyes, then. “Sorry.”  
  
“No,” Sebastian says helplessly, “it’s all right,” and walks his client to the door.  
  
Ten minutes later, his work phone lights up. Chris sent him a picture. Bratwurst. Drenched in jalapeño cheese. A thumbs-up.  
  
Sebastian snorts out loud—his mirror reflects the sound skeptically—and sends back a picture of the box of chocolates he keeps in his desk for _those_ kinds of days. It’s an instantly recognizable box. Dark and luxuriant, promising expensive molten revelations inside.  
  
Chris texts him: _you offering dessert?_  
  
_You can have one next time I see you. Only one, mind you. And don’t tell anyone. I don’t share these even with Anthony._  
  
_I feel special._ _:-)_  
  
_Very. Speaking of Anthony, he’s back, I have to go. Talk to you tomorrow._  
  
Chris sends a string of thumbs-up emoji this time. Sebastian laughs, and yells down the hall for Anthony to hurry up and come in for post-engagement evaluation, he doesn’t care if Anthony’s ass is sore, it’s his own fault.  
  
While he waits, a blinding romantic-comedy vision plays at high speed inside his head: Chris ignoring his demurral, Chris running back in with a bacon-jam slathered chicken-apple sausage, Chris running in to feed him because Chris couldn’t stay away and wanted to bring him a gift…  
  
Chris Evans does not come running back in with a gift of food. Because Chris Evans is a good person, and respects Sebastian’s no. Ignoring the no would not be Being Respectful.  
  
Anthony enters his office and says brightly, “Robert owns so many dildos!”  
  
Sebastian goes to bed that night without a hot dog, without Chris Evans, and with a large amount of cranky depression. He doesn’t even bother to try getting himself off, because Anthony’s illustrative hand gestures’ve temporarily ruined all his toys.


	5. thursday night, or technically friday morning, three am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sebastian tries very hard not to be jealous, and likes Chris's hands a great deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: contains some off-screen, only discussed, Chris Evans/Chris Pratt, as per that appointment. Also contains Sebastian's very colorful fantasies regarding Chris Evans and spankings and himself across Chris's lap.
> 
> The background RDJ/Mackie is, and has been from the beginning, [Brenda](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenda/pseuds/Brenda)'s fault. :-)

“He’s awesome,” Pratt says.  
  
“Shut up and take your shirt off,” Sebastian grumbles. Pratt is a night person and opted to just come over immediately after for check-in and evaluation. Sebastian has now heard some variation of _awesome, dreamy, super-cool_ approximately fifteen times.  
  
“Really great,” Pratt piles on, pulling his shirt off over his head. Sebastian stares at the vibrant hickey. Part of him hopes it’ll be a sore spot. The rest of him automatically fusses over his escort.   
  
“Can you give me details that don’t involve the words _sexy as fuck_ , please?”  
  
“Yeah, sure.” Pratt cocks his head. “Touchy tonight? Rough day?”  
  
Sebastian’s expression must speak loudly enough; his escort shrugs and moves on. “I wasn’t sure we were gonna get to sex—and it only went as far as, y’know, some making out and our hands, didn’t even get pants off—but I was totally up for it the second he walked in. He’s like a real-life superhero, that body, and then he’s just a good guy, too, but, man, those pecs, those _biceps_. I mean, have you _seen_ the guy?”  
  
Sebastian has seen the guy, indeed. Not on the same up-close personal level. Not nearly so. “Yes.”  
  
“So, yeah. He’s great to hang out with, not a pretentious bigshot director type at all, big fan of beer and the Patriots and Tom Brady. He does charity work too, talked about his favorite place to support, this super-neat setup where they arrange housing and care for families with kids in the hospital. I’d seriously chill with him for free. He’s that cool.”  
  
“And then you ended up with his mouth on your neck. Standard questions: consensual, comfortable, any moments when you felt pressured, any marks left that you didn’t want?”  
  
“Enthusiastically consensual, boss. He’s not too experienced with guys—I’m not his first, but not a lot before me, either—and he’s kinda learning the ropes, but he’s a gentleman in bed. Checking in, wanting me to be comfortable, asking if things’re okay.”  
  
Sebastian is now attempting futilely not to ponder Chris Evans plus ropes. “Thank you—”  
  
“Once he’s sure you’re into it, he really gets committed. _Great_ hands. Artistic hands.”  
  
“All right, I’ve got the idea—”  
  
“He’d be a good top,” Pratt muses, “taking charge and directing everything, but always taking care of you, too…kinda firm but gentle…he likes being kissed, being teased a little, so he can—”  
  
“Thank you!” One more word and he’s going to explode from either orgasm or frustration. His heart whines, unhappy, nastily jealous despite knowing how good this is for Chris, Chris who needs companionship and comfort. His cock’s trying to turn to iron in his pants; Sebastian’s forced himself to learn self-control in the past. He practices this skill vehemently now. “Put your shirt back on. Anything else I need to know?”  
  
“Nope, he’s perfect. Kinda lonely, maybe, but we can help with that.”  
  
“That’s the idea. All right, we’re done, you can go. I’ll let you know if he wants you again.”  
  
“Happy to.” Pratt tugs his shirt back on, yawns, runs hands through make-out rumpled hair. He looks exactly like someone who’s just come from rolling around in Chris Evans’ hotel bed, after drinks and masculine bonding at the bar. He stops in the doorway. “Oh, right. He did ask about you.”  
  
“He did?” His heart leaps: elation, bashful excitement, apprehension, swooping nerves. Clients out with one of his escorts should be having too much fun to ask about _him_. And in any case Chris Evans can’t be _interested_ in him. This is _not_ a possible development. For so many reasons. “What did he say?”  
  
“Not much, just asked what you were like to work for, if you were cool, because you seemed too cool to be real, something like that, I forget.” Pratt scrunches up his face. “He asked why you retired, like he was worried there was some story, like you had to stop. I gave him your standard answer, that we really can’t talk about you or Anthony much, you guys pay our salaries, and we wouldn’t say anything you didn’t want us to but there isn’t anything anyway, you take care of us. And he understood.”  
  
“…yes. Thank you.”  
  
“That’s the usual speech, right? When they get more interested than you’re comfortable with? I did tell him again that you and Anthony were busy managing this place, you’re not gonna pick up any clients on your own behalf. Speaking of, any more douchebag telephone calls?”  
  
Sebastian shakes himself. Finds an appropriate response. Not what his heart wants to shout. “Nothing lately. Perhaps he’s given up. And…that’s what we ask you to do in that situation, yes. Exactly right. Thank you for telling me.”  
  
“Any time,” Pratt says, and ambles off to crash in an unoccupied guest room, humming a butchered version of “A Whole New World” on his way.  
  
“—when did you last let your heart decide,” Sebastian joins in, half under his breath, to his desk and sofa and open window. They remind him that the next line’s about being taken: over, sideways, and under.   
  
He locks up more forcefully than usual out of spite. His head aches, a dull pulse that sits squarely between his eyes. He tries to defeat the ache by going to bed, which fails to work in any significant way.  
  
The next morning, which is technically the same morning but later, he’s sleep-deprived and irritable and wishing he’d gotten to be drunk before the demonic hangover. He flips open his laptop and glares balefully at the screen. It promptly makes his day worse by alerting him to an upcoming problem, at which point Anthony calls to say he won’t be in because Robert’s taking him wine-tasting. Sebastian retorts, “If that’s a euphemism I don’t want to know, and no, I need you here. Our schedule’s fucked up for next week—not this next Tuesday, the one after—and I want your input.”  
  
“We’ve got a week to fix it,” Anthony observes cheerfully. “Did you order those new nipple clamps? I swear those things go missing like every other day.”  
  
“Fuck,” Sebastian says, with feeling. “No, I forgot. I’ll do it right now. Sorry.” They do have a few clients with exotic tastes. A few employees as well. Himself. “Do we need anything else? Vibrators, gags, beads?”  
  
“I don’t think so, unless you do. Come to think of it—”  
  
“Please stop there.”  
  
“—you know what’d be awesome? Just for you?”  
  
“I’ve had your dick in my ass before. I barely noticed.”  
  
“Love you too, Vanilla Ice. It was the best you ever had, and you know it. I was gonna say, you know you can find anything on the internet, and you’re busy having _scruples_ and not getting laid, but I bet you could find a dildo shaped like Chris Evans’—”  
  
“What makes you think I don’t already have one,” Sebastian says, “but I appreciate the thought you put into my sex life. I’m going to fix our schedule problem and order sex toys and do our actual fucking job while you lick wine off Robert’s chest, and I hope you feel guilty about it.”  
  
“Not his chest I’m licking, kid.”  
  
“Feel guilty about it!” Sebastian yells at the phone, and hangs up to the sound of Anthony snickering.  
  
Because the universe hates him, Chris Evans calls immediately after. Sebastian, sitting at his laptop with his pet headache squashing his brain and a page of nipple clamps open on the screen, makes an inarticulate sound, grabs his phone, drops it, dives for it, smacks his elbow on his desk. “Ow ow ow _rahat_ fuck—”  
  
“Sebastian?” Chris asks, like he’s unsure about this in the face of the flailing. “Um…”  
  
“Yes, me, sorry. I’m just—I only—never mind. Sorry.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“What? Oh…I…don’t know. Everything. Cursing at you. What did you need?”  
  
“What was the sound?”  
  
“My elbow had an unfriendly encounter with my desk. They have an ongoing feud. I’m not a happy battlefield. Wait, I’m supposed to call _you_ , did I—forget, or—”  
  
“No, I just wanted to hear—is that bad? Should I not call you?”  
  
The nefarious headache, which has its own evil schemes, takes over his mouth to say, “No, you’re the best part of this whole morning, I like talking to you.” Sebastian regards these words with horror. They’re exactly true, but highly inappropriate. _Incredibly_ inappropriate. Chris is his _client_.   
  
He covers mental panic up with, “Follow-up questions, then? Everything good?”  
  
“Pratt’s fucking awesome. He and I have a bet riding on the Super Bowl now. Charity donation stakes. And we…I’m guessing he told you we, y’know, there was some action.”  
  
“He told me, yes.”  
  
“Also great,” Chris says. “He was real good with me, cool about me being kinda…it’s been a while with a guy…and he made me feel great, too. Like it was super-relaxed, comfortable, no worries if I fucked up, just makin’ each other, y’know, happy, gettin’ off. Tell him thank you.”  
  
“I’ll pass that along.”  
  
“And you. Thank you for this one, seriously.”  
  
“Not at all. I thought you’d like him. You said you might be in town for a while; would you like to see him again?” His masochistic tendencies are making themselves known. Terrific.  
  
“Yeah, sure, if he would? Maybe this upcoming Saturday?”  
  
“Saturday’s fine, yes.”  
  
“Sebastian?” Chris sounds like he’s biting his lip, fretting over words. “I meant it. Thank you. You—it’s like you know exactly what I want, like, every time. Like I never have to worry about anything, I can call you and you’ll take care of it. I talk to people because of you. I can talk to you and it’s, like, easy. That’s—I don’t even know. How to thank you.”  
  
“You never have to.” Sebastian closes his eyes. The headache’s making him want to cry. Must be that. “I want you to be happy. Professionally, but also personally. You’re a good person, Chris. I want to do this for you.”  
  
“Are you okay? You sound…I don’t know. Kinda off. Quiet.”  
  
“I’m fine, really.”  
  
“Can I help?”  
  
“Chris…”  
  
“Tell me?”  
  
Chris sounds the way a puppy looks, bringing a ball to a sad human, ears up and hopeful. Sebastian gives in. “My business partner is breaking our code of ethics left, right, and on his back, while being nothing but thrilled about it. I’ve just found a scheduling error that means we have three conflicts for next Tuesday. And I have a fucking vicious headache. Sorry, I’m normally better about compartmentalizing, sorry again, but you did ask. I’ll be fine, I can handle it, you don’t have to worry.”  
  
Chris is quiet for a second, and then, “Do you have two minutes? Right now?”  
  
Sebastian gazes helplessly at his laptop. It shrugs back. “Sure?”  
  
“Can you stand up?”  
  
“Ah…yes?”  
  
“Okay,” Chris says, and tells him to stretch, arms over head, all the way until his back arches; tells him to bend forward and let gravity and his own weight pull tension loose; tells him to get back upright and roll shoulders around, and oh god _yes_.  
  
“Oh god.” Close to a moan. But oh fuck that feels good. “Oh _god_ , thank you.”  
  
Chris tactfully ignores the embarrassing sex noises. “Do you have water around? You said headache. You might be dehydrated.”  
  
He does. He keeps some in the mini-fridge. He only…hadn’t thought about getting up. Until Chris told him to. “I can get water.”  
  
“Can anyone come help with your scheduling?”  
  
“No, I can fix it. I’ll need to…I’ll have to take one of them. As an apology.” He’ll take Margarita. She’s been coming to them since the early days, back when he and Anthony still saw clients; she wants a romantic date engagement with no strings attached but definitely topped off by sex, which he can certainly provide. He knows what she likes and his own tastes mostly align; she can tell him precisely what to do to please her, which’ll get them both off, and she’ll be amused, not upset, that he’s taken the place of the escort she’s requested. She’ll regard it as a compliment.   
  
The other conflict he can fix by shifting a time-slot earlier; that client’s free the whole day anyway and simply wants a knowledgeable companion for a high-fashion shopping expedition. Done.  
  
Chris has been silent for an unnervingly long time. Sebastian asks, “Did you want me to go ahead and schedule you with Pratt for Saturday, then?” and sends a quick email regarding the time change.  
  
“You…” That voice stumbles, stops. “I thought you…you didn’t take clients? You and Anthony?”  
  
“I normally don’t, but no one else can do this one at this time, and she’s an old friend. Exceptions.”  
  
“Oh…”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nothing. Never mind. Will you, y’know…be okay?”  
  
“Thoroughly yes,” Sebastian says, a little startled. Chris sounds concerned. Even apprehensive, as if there’s some reason Sebastian wouldn’t enjoy sex these days. “It’s not a difficult engagement. I’ll be home early, probably.”  
  
“Will someone be there to…” Chris audibly searches for words. “To help? Take care of you? I know you do that for other people.”  
  
“I’ll have to talk to Anthony about it in the morning, which he’ll enjoy far too much. Tell the man you wore cat ears and got on all fours one time, with one client, and he never lets you forget it.”  
  
“You what?” With a shift in position; Sebastian hears a chair creak. “I meant right after. Not in the morning. Do you have someone who can—”  
  
“Chris,” Sebastian interrupts patiently, “I’ll be fine. She’s a friend, we’ve known her a long time, and I’m hardly an innocent virgin. And I really can’t discuss other clients with you. I don’t know why I am. I’m more tired than I thought.”  
  
“You’re not discussing a client. We’re discussing you.” Chris sighs, an abrupt wistful exhale like wishes carried on dandelion puffs. “I just…I don’t like thinking about you being alone.”  
  
“I don’t like me being alone, either.” He tucks legs up into the fortress of his chair. Solid back, heavy swirled arms, wings that close around him. Chris’s voice on the line, and he’s so tired. “I love outer space, did I ever tell you that? My stepfather bought me a telescope for my thirteenth birthday, a good one, expensive. I used to go out on the balcony at night and watch stars and wonder about other worlds, stories, people looking back down at me.”  
  
“Not alone,” Chris whispers.   
  
“Part of a big wonderful boundless universe, discoveries and explorations reaching out to draw me in. Of course I could never be an astronaut.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“I’m scared of flying. I prefer Shakespeare to physics equations. I’m not a hero. Take your pick of reasons. Will you be coming by in person on Saturday, or should we arrange a meeting-place?”  
  
“I’ll stop by. You’re scared of flying?”  
  
Sebastian waves a hand even though Chris can’t see. “I know how airplanes work, I know statistically it’s relatively safe, I only…have never quite convinced my instincts of that. I can do it if I have to, but I hate it. You couldn’t ask me about Shakespeare instead?”  
  
“Got a favorite play?”  
  
“ _Julius Caesar._ I love the questions. To what extent our lives are determined by fate, birth, circumstance, outside influence, or our own free will and moral choices…”  
  
Chris might be nodding along. “I can see that. You liking that. Building your own life, protecting other people, being a leader. A hero.”  
  
“I said I’m not.”  
  
“I think you’re wrong,” Chris Evans says. “I think you—you don’t know how much you give to us. Your clients. Your escorts. Me. Thank you for this. For telling me—everything you just said. That means—well, that means somethin’. A lot. That you would.”  
  
“Chris,” Sebastian whispers back. “No, that’s—you were right. I don’t like feeling—alone—and I was, before you called. So—”  
  
“Was…?”  
  
“Yes. You—this is better. Thank you.”  
  
“I’m glad.” Chris hesitates, not uncomfortably, more as if he doesn’t have words poised to encompass too many emotions, knocked loose and rattling around. Or that’s only Sebastian’s own head. Heart. Everything. “That’s…if you ever need me…did you drink water? Still got a headache?”  
  
“Some, yes. It’s not gone, but not as bad as it was.” This is a matter of Mount Everest versus the Rockies, but not untrue. He’s trying not to think about what Chris has just offered. About himself reaching out to those strong muscles, those kind ocean-wave eyes, for comfort. About Chris promising to be there if ever needed.  
  
Chris would. He knows that like he knows his own heartbeat. Chris’s loyalty, once given, will be unassailable. Unbowed.  
  
“Can you go lie down? I want you to go lie down if you can,” Chris says. “Rest. You fixed your scheduling, right? So lock everyone out for a while, drink more water, take painkillers if you have to, but go lie down on your couch, it looks like a nice couch, and don’t try to do anything until you feel better. Um. Sorry. That came out kinda—I didn’t mean to sound like…but. Rest. Please.”  
  
“I should finish—”  
  
His feeble protest’s interrupted by someone on Chris’s end. Some assistant, production manager, scene dresser, asking for input about lighting and atmosphere on the film’s classroom set. “Shit,” Chris says. “I have to go. I’ll see you Saturday, though. And I want to hear that you’re taking care of yourself.”  
  
“Go. Be a famous director. Solve lighting dilemmas. I’ll be all right.”  
  
“You’d better be,” Chris says, “or I’ll come over there and sit on you. Yeah, I’m coming, no, tell them not to use that spotlight, it’s too stark for that scene, why would you—” and gets off the phone.  
  
Sebastian tips his head back against his chair. Closes his eyes. Feels small and protected and cherished for an instant, letting himself be cradled by his furniture and Chris’s accidental command. The morning’s golden and hushed, made of light and orders. Nothing hurts here in the gold. Everything’s hazy and sweet and safe, and he’s good, listening to Chris.  
  
He opens his eyes when his email makes a sound.  
  
Confirmation about next Tuesday. Both changes. The shopping expedition’s happily moved earlier; Margarita’s vastly entertained—as predicted—that she gets Sebastian to play with. She knows perfectly well that he wouldn’t unless circumstances demand it; she’s looking forward to using this fact in the scene and getting him into a desperate submissive headspace. They’ll almost certainly both get off, she’ll make him work hard to please her and beg for mercy, and he needs that catharsis; but the thought that Chris wouldn’t be quite so cruel, wouldn’t use a moment of real failure against him for play, mixing the two, flits across his mind.   
  
He responds appropriately to both messages. He finishes ordering new sex toys with varying degrees of pinching harshness for tender flesh. And then he gets up and closes his door and brings his bottle of water and flops down on his couch, burrowing like a small injured animal into softness. His head hurts distantly, but he’s lying down, he’s drinking water, he’s thinking about Chris Evans.  
  
Would Chris be proud of him? Pleased? Would Chris come sit with him and rub his back, or stroke his hair, or let Sebastian climb into his lap and simply be held, not speaking because gentle petting from those hands is praise enough? Would Chris think he’s earned that, been good enough, deserved the reward?  
  
Chris phrased that care as a command. On purpose?  
  
Chris jokingly promised to come over and sit on him if he didn’t behave. Maybe he shouldn’t.  
  
Maybe he should call Chris back and say he plans to go for a five-mile run and drink a bottle of vodka and skip dinner. That’s not taking care of himself. Chris would _have_ to come sit on him.  
  
Chris might even spank him. Chris could come charging into this office and sit down on this sofa and put Sebastian over a knee and pull down his jeans and underwear in order to spank him with those big hands, compassionate but firm, enforcing consequences for deliberately provocative behavior. Sebastian would squirm and cry and feel his backside glow red, scorched by steady impacts, ceaseless and measured and hard; Chris might not even let him come, but that’d be okay, he would like that, showing Chris how good he can be, taking punishment like a good boy, obeying orders about denial of pleasure, which of course is pleasure of a different sort.  
  
“Fuck,” he says out loud, a whimper in his office.  
  
He wants Chris Evans. He wants Chris Evans very very badly, aching with need. He gave Chris a piece of his past, more pieces of himself. He wants to give Chris more. Chris might handle all his pieces with care, not minding some jagged edges, cupping even broken bits securely in broad hands.  
  
Chris Evans is a Hollywood up-and-coming director with an important film to create. Chris is a nice guy who cares about his friends. Chris is off worrying about lighting and cameras, making appointments with Pratt, thanking Sebastian for setting him _up_ with Pratt.  
  
Sebastian tried to be an actor once. He ended up here, running this agency. He’s tried to be a writer—or, he supposes, he’s not really tried; he’s been too paralyzed with dread to let anyone else read his stories. He’s tried to be professional at this job, and he’s having fantasies about Chris Evans spanking him until he cries, until he comes just from that, lying across Chris’s lap, mind empty of everything except glorious white-hot sensation, cock untouched except for where he’s being rocked into Chris’s thigh with every blow. Anthony’s off fucking Robert Downey Junior like the world might end tomorrow; Sebastian has a former client who’s become an obsessive stalker and has moments ago sent a vaguely ominous email to the agency address saying _might be seeing you soon_.  
  
The sob catches in his throat and burns like acid.  
  
No, he thinks fiercely. No. I’m all right. I’m his friend. I’m _handling_ everything. I’m at least writing again even if no one sees it, I’ve made Chris happy with Pratt, I’m being good right now even if he’ll never know, I’m not imposing on him or anyone else. I’m _okay_.   
  
Chris thinks he’s doing okay. Chris is happier because of him. He believes that to be true.  
  
He breathes out, clinging to his water-bottle.  
  
He drifts into troubled painkiller-clouded dreams. When he wakes he doesn’t recall specifics, only a lurking sense of unease, of grey mists, of something he should be able to see but can’t, terribly important but hidden from his sight somehow.


	6. saturday night, late, and sunday morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sebastian makes three sandwiches and Chris Evans gets a massage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear that eventually they're going to actually TALK about things. I SWEAR.
> 
> Also, yeah, nine chapters. Maybe even ten, depending on whether I want to give you a cliffhanger in the middle...

Saturday evening Chris comes by late. He’d called to say filming’d run long, and he looks it: shadowy eyes, messy hair under a baseball cap, clutching two paper cups of coffee. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you wait—”  
  
“No, it’s fine.” Sebastian hops up immediately and crosses the room to his side, and then isn’t entirely sure why. Not as if Chris is here for _him_. “It’s only eleven, I’m a night owl anyway, and it’s your appointment time, we’re on your schedule. What happened? Would you like to sit down, or do you want a beer, or—”  
  
“Hey,” Pratt says, also standing up. He’d been lounging on Sebastian’s sofa, reading a graphic novel about a sentient raccoon; they’d decided he might as well hang out in the upstairs office, since everyone else but Don has gone home, and Sebastian doesn’t mind company when arguing with scheduling spreadsheets.   
  
Both Sebastian and Chris turn to look at him. Somehow they’d forgotten he was there. Not registering.   
  
“Hey,” Chris says. “Um, sorry.” Sebastian’s busy being horrified at his own lapse in rational judgment, and can’t form sentences. Chris looks down at the coffee. Both coffees, in his hands. “I, um, I didn’t realize there’d be three of us already. I stopped at that place around the corner, it’s not anything fancy…”  
  
“No wonder my escorts adore you,” Sebastian manages, on autopilot, and takes one coffee and hands it to his employee. “You’re possibly the most considerate client we’ve ever had. Thank you on behalf of Pratt, who was raised in a barn and knows nothing about proper manners. I’m holding reservations for you at The Hammer and Shield, which is a fabulous whiskey bar and old-fashioned speakeasy, but I can always cancel, if you’re tired. Honestly I’d suggest you simply go upstairs and borrow one of our rooms; I’ll order Thai delivery and then leave you two alone.”  
  
“I was raised in a van in Hawaii,” Pratt says, “which you know, because you keep sending me pictures of pineapple and asking whether that’s my cousin Bob. And no, that’s Fred, Bob’s the papaya, I’ve told you that like twenty times.” He’s giving Sebastian a slightly cockeyed expression: amused, intrigued, mildly concerned. “Didn’t realize you two were meeting up first.”  
  
Chris looks at his own coffee, then at the cup now unobtrusively steaming in Pratt’s hand, then at Sebastian. “Seb—”  
  
“I told him to wait up here,” Sebastian says, “no point in him being downstairs alone, so I—”  
  
“You didn’t want to be alone.” Chris’s eyes are heartbreakingly gentle. “How’re you doing? I should’ve called. We’re like three days behind schedule and a second-unit camera stopped working for no reason and a stunt guy broke his leg yesterday and I—but I meant to check on you.”  
  
“Come on,” Pratt says, “that’s why I’m here. Well, me and Don. Mostly Don. If your least favorite stalker in the world decides to break in after hours, I can manfully throw your security at him.”  
  
Chris’s attention snaps that way. “Stalker—?”  
  
“It’s nothing,” Sebastian jumps in hastily. “Former client. Missing my delightful company. It sounds like you’ve had a busy few days; go up and use the waterfall room and make Pratt give you a massage, and sleep here if you want. That bed is the most comfortable cloud you’ll ever sleep on, and I promise not to disturb you.” The waterfall room’s built for luxury. Walls shimmer in pale gauzy blue like tumbling rivers, and the carpet’s soundlessly plush, and furniture’s carefully chosen to create an oasis of serenity in the middle of the city. The bed’s technically nicer than Sebastian’s own, but his is _his_ , and so remains the best.   
  
“I’m good at massages,” Pratt contributes. “I can French-braid too, not that you have the hair for that. Seb does, though; want me to demonstrate?”  
  
Chris laughs, though he’s watching Sebastian. “Yeah, that…sounds nice, actually, not the French-braid thing—well, maybe, if I get to watch—but just kinda hiding out here overnight…you’d let me stay here?”  
  
“That’s what those rooms are for.”’  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Sebastian relents. Chris does look tired. “We don’t generally do overnights here. Assignations, yes, but we’re not a hotel anymore. Every once in a while, though. With clients we trust.”  
  
“Oh.” Chris looks happier, though a crease wrinkles his forehead. “Will you…have to stay here too, then? All night?”  
  
Chris doesn’t know he lives even further upstairs. Several floors above.   
  
Above where Chris and Pratt are going to become naked and ease some tensions. Within the next few moments.  
  
X-ray vision both would and would not be welcome, under the circumstances, and either way an invasion of privacy. Sebastian’s never wished so badly to be a supervillain. Maybe he could have a cape. X-ray vision and a flowing vermilion cape and a secret lair lined with priceless books and a room in which he could kidnap Chris Evans and demand that Chris cuddle him whenever he needs a hug, because, well: supervillain.  
  
Chris probably wouldn’t want to cuddle a supervillain. This fantasy might be problematic. For many reasons, X-ray vision not least.  
  
Sebastian wouldn’t mind the fantasy going the _other_ direction. Chris could kidnap him any time. Chain him to a bed. Naked. Punishment for supervillainy. Correction and scolding required. Penance and retraining into proper behavior.  
  
Chris doesn’t _want_ him. Chris is _happy_ with Pratt.   
  
He yanks himself out of dungeon-related daydreams and back to the present. Those pesky scruples wave at him from the inside of his head. Hell.  
  
“…don’t worry about me. I won’t stay in the office, but I’m not far away. You can call any time.”  
  
Pratt looks from his employer to his client and back. Starts to smile, which bodes ill for Sebastian’s future in some as yet unknown way. “Hey, Seb.”  
  
Yes. No. I’m not here after all. This is a Life-Model Decoy. I’m upstairs pretending not to think about activities under a waterfall, sea-spray mist over slick bodies rippling together. “Something you need?”  
  
“Food’s a good idea.” Pratt’s eyes turn into big limpid pools. “But if you order something, you’ll have to come bring it to us. We have food here, don’t we?”  
  
Sebastian glares at him, unsure precisely where this is going but certain it deserves disapproval. “Yes…”  
  
“I can put together something for Chris real quick. In our kitchen.”  
  
“You have a kitchen?” Chris asks.  
  
“Third floor. Sort of a…common area, employee lounge, kitchen, space to be when not actively annoying me.” He attempts to intensify the glare. “We don’t normally let clients—”  
  
“I can make food,” Pratt muses. “I mean, I’m not a great cook, but, like, peanut-butter-and-jelly-and-jalapeño quesadillas, or instant mac and cheese—”  
  
“I’m not picky,” Chris Evans says around a guilty yawn. “And don’t fuckin’ like go out of your way or—”  
  
“Excuse us for a sec,” Sebastian says brightly, and grabs his escort.  
  
Out in the hall, tastefully timeless light-fixtures forming a fascinated bronze-rubbed audience, he hisses, “What the _fuck_ , Pratt.”  
  
“Someone needs to feed the guy, he’s asleep on his feet, and if you order Thai it’ll take twenty minutes and you’ll have to interrupt us.” Pratt spreads hands: what can you do? “So I’m gonna try to cook, and—”  
  
“We are _not feeding Chris Evans whatever the inhuman fuck it is you put in quesadillas!”_  
  
This gets a shrug. “ _You_ make something, then.”  
  
Sebastian, already about to answer, stops. Scrutinizes his escort. Pratt radiates innocence the way pastel paper daisy-chains covered in glittery rabbits and hung up a week before Easter might: trying far too hard.  
  
“Is this on purpose? Are you trying to get me to cook?”  
  
“Well, yeah, obviously.”  
  
“Is…this…because you missed last month’s pancake extravaganza night, and you want me to make up for it?”  
  
“Yeah, sure.” Pratt holds up hands. Butter wouldn’t melt in them. “Let’s go with that.”  
  
“Why don’t I trust you?”  
  
“Boss. I’m hurt.” Exaggerated sadness. “I love your cooking. We all love your cooking. Your cooking will make Chris happy, isn’t that the point, come on, please.”  
  
Sebastian stares at him, mouths a couple of extremely filthy words—the wallpaper blushes, scandalized—and then surrenders. He knows Pratt’s up to something.   
  
But he can’t say no. Not faced with even a joking suggestion that he’s hurt his escort’s feelings, that he can do something on the spot to help everyone here have a better night.  
  
The light-fixtures snicker at him, but sympathetically so.  
  
He opens the office door. Sticks his head back in. “If you don’t mind my company another few minutes, I’ll come up with something edible that does _not_ combine peanut butter and jalapeño peppers.”  
  
“Hey,” Pratt protests, disregarded.  
  
“Of course,” Chris says instantly, “or, wait, I mean no, I don’t mind—I mean I like your company. But if you’re going home—”  
  
“I’m not leaving you to his terrifying culinary devices. Come upstairs with me.”  
  
“My protector.” Chris touches his arm, in the stairwell. Pratt’s ahead of them both, doubtless out of eagerness regarding his employer’s kitchen prowess. “I think I should apologize. About the coffee.”  
  
Sebastian trips over his next step up, foot catching on a stair he’s known for years. Chris grabs his arm more tightly, steadying. “Ah,” Sebastian says awkwardly. “Coffee? Also thank you.”  
  
“Those invisible rocks follow you around. I mean because you…you asked me not to buy you things. Gifts. I didn’t think.”  
  
“Oh—”  
  
“I meant it as an apology. Running late. I didn’t mean to ignore your boundaries. I’m sorry.”  
  
“Chris,” Sebastian says. The stairwell’s quiet around them, tawny light and nighttime onyx. “I know. Honestly if Pratt hadn’t been there I’d’ve kept it. Especially if you put any sort of coconut or raspberry or hazelnut syrup in it. But I would have taken it. Because I did know. What you meant.”  
  
Chris’s lips shape the _oh_ this time, as they look at each other, face to face.  
  
“Seb!” Pratt yells from above. “Why’s this door locked?”  
  
Sebastian catches breath, spins around, shouts upward, “Stalker, remember? I have keys!” and takes stairs two at a time, Chris large and solid and present at his back.  
  
In the kitchen he orders his emotions to behave, and gets out bread and cheese and bacon and apples. His emotions refuse to listen, but the ingredients cooperate. “How do we feel about grilled cheese?” Comfort food for Chris’s long day, relatively easy but fun, and he’s not above showing off with a pan.  
  
“We feel great about that.” Pratt plops onto a bar stool. The kitchen’s not large but renovated with care, like everything else; Sebastian’d picked out sunny white cabinetry and smoky space-swirl countertops, and tries to gather and feed his employees at least once a month. He doesn’t keep his personal pans or ingredients down here, but does buy good white cheddar and fresh crisp apples, because if they’re all going to wander up here for snacks, those snacks should be decent.  
  
He nudges the refrigerator door shut with a hip. Chris Evans, not comprehending the idea that guests don’t have to work, says, “How can I help?”  
  
“Sit down and relax. There should be beer and both sparkling and unsparkling—is that a word?—water in this fridge. I keep the stronger and more expensive stuff in my office, if you’d rather I run down there.”  
  
“Miser,” Pratt puts in happily.  
  
“You know exactly why. I pay for this, thank you, and we’re not having a repeat of the impromptu toga party. That took three days to clean up, and we needed a new kitchen table.”  
  
Chris Evans gets out a beer, says, “What do you want?” and then glances at Pratt. “You too.”  
  
Pratt opts for beer, Sebastian for sparkling water because he’s cooking. Chris comes into the kitchen to bring it to him, and then, unasked, picks up cheese. “You need this sliced?”  
  
“Um…yes, but you don’t have to—”  
  
“Got a knife?”  
  
Sebastian wordlessly passes his own over. He’s pretty much done with apples anyway. And Chris wants to help, and he’s not going to argue with his client. Obviously.  
  
“This is nice.” Chris gestures with the knife: the kitchen, the lounge space, by implication the night.    
  
Yes. Nice. He looks down at bacon.  
  
He’s in their kitchen making comfort food for Chris Evans and his own escort at eleven-thirty on Saturday night. He’s let Chris come up here. Into his life.   
  
This shouldn’t feel normal. And it doesn’t—his chest twinges meaningfully when he looks at Pratt grinning at Chris—but it also does. As if this is right: himself caring for Chris. Whatever Chris needs.  
  
The bacon crumbles in his hand. He apologizes to it mentally, and gets back to work. He can’t hide the smile, though, as stove-heat flushes his face.  
  
White cheddar and smoked bacon and apple-slices get toasty and molten. Aromas of simple hearty goodness fill the kitchen. Chris’s arm bumps his once or twice. Nice, he thinks. Home.  
  
Maybe he can’t resist a flip of sandwich, a flourish of pan-skills and presentation. Maybe Chris laughs and applauds.  
  
Sandwiches and extra apple-slices and chocolate-covered espresso beans distributed for dessert, they sit around the table—the six-month old table, which has no clue what befell its predecessor, and Sebastian hopes to keep it that innocent—and conversation lags while everyone devours sustenance. Chris Evans gives him a wide-eyed look and more applause after the first bite. Sebastian blushes, shrugs, tries not to look ridiculous with a mouthful of melted cheese, resigns himself to the fact that Chris Evans has seen him trying to talk through food, and wonders whether he can drown in a bottle of sparkling water. Possible. Likely uncomfortable. Oh well. He’s got a sandwich to hide behind.  
  
“So I’m decent in a kitchen,” Pratt says around half his sandwich, “but you’re like a magician. You could quit working here and open a restaurant any time.”  
  
“I take it I’m forgiven for testing the violet mustard chicken on you all two months ago?”  
  
“It _tasted_ fine.” Pratt finishes off his heroic bite. “Chicken shouldn’t be that shade of purple, ’s all I’m saying.”  
  
“It was the sauce, not the actual chicken! Anyway you ate five pieces!”  
  
“Back me up here,” Pratt says to Chris. “Chicken shouldn’t be purple.”  
  
Chris puts up hands in self-defense. “Wasn’t there. Can’t comment. The chicken might’ve wanted to look pretty.”  
  
“Nice save,” Pratt notes, grinning. “Diplomatic.”  
  
“He’s feeding me, and you’re fu—” Chris skids to a halt. “Oh…man…that was about to be so inappropriate…I swear my brain just comes up with the _most_ inappropriate…”  
  
“He’s fucking you, you were about to say,” Sebastian completes sweetly. “Of course you wouldn’t want to offend either of us. You might end up utterly unfulfilled. Not getting…full at all.”  
  
“Wow,” Chris says, sounding awed.  
  
“You can’t possibly offend us.” Sebastian puts his sandwich down. His heart stirs, restless, unsettled by his own flip comment. He picks up a chocolate-covered espresso bean to have something to hold onto. “We’ve heard worse.”  
  
“I’m your guest.” Chris is looking at his fingers, and then at his face. “Mom would tell me to be polite.”  
  
“No need.”  
  
“Hey,” Pratt says, doing their actual job, which involves steering the conversation to the client’s interests and stress-free topics, “you think anyone’ll ever challenge Tom Brady’s record for Super Bowl passes, or—”  
  
Chris lights up, a fan presented with the topic of an idol, and is off running. Conversation devolves into Super Bowl statistics and championship records. Sebastian has nothing to contribute here. He nibbles at the end of his sandwich, a witness to their enthusiasm. He’s happy because they’re happy.  
  
“…not a football person?”  
  
“…what? Sorry.”  
  
Chris grins. “You. Not a football person, right?”  
  
“Not really, no. Basketball, a little, not in much depth. Wrestling, WWE, when I was younger. I liked the characters and the costumes and the stories. American football…I never quite figured out the rules.”  
  
“Wait, so you’re not perfect after all? You can’t do everything?” Chris is laughing. Teasing him.  
  
Because Chris _is_ teasing, he forces himself to come up with a response in kind. “I’ve never been asked to know about football, but of course I’m happy to learn anything that’ll help me serve our clients’ needs. _Whatever_ those might be.” He lets this hang in the air for a second, then adds, “However, now that I’m retired, I’m responsible for…educating myself…in whatever ways I choose.”  
  
Across the table, Pratt’s lips come together in a soundless whistle. Sebastian can’t really blame him. The innuendo behind _educating_ hadn’t exactly been delicately disguised.  
  
Chris Evans seems to be frozen. Last bite of sandwich caught halfway to his mouth. Eyes fixed on Sebastian’s face.  
  
“I like to think I’m quite good at it. Self…education. Definitely pleasurable, after hours. Learning…new things.”   
  
“Oh my god, boss,” Pratt says, which is absolutely a wise interruption, because Sebastian’s feeling provocative and bratty and frustrated by his own lack of perfection and reckless enough to push someone to do something about it. “Stop there, wow, seriously, unless you’re planning to join in tonight.”  
  
“Right,” Sebastian says. “Sorry.”  
  
Chris Evans still hasn’t moved. Staring at him. Starting to become unnerving, that intensity.  
  
“Speaking of,” he says, getting up, collecting plates, needing to be in motion, “you should get going. I’ve distracted you long enough, and Chris, you had a rough day, and we promised you a massage. Go on, I’ll clean up.”  
  
“Sounds good.” Pratt downs the end of his beer, gets up, holds out a hand to Chris. “I promise to be gentle. Maybe even educational, if you feel like learning new things too.”  
  
Chris takes the hand, but keeps looking at Sebastian. “You…that…did you _want_ me to think about you…”  
  
“Sorry again,” Sebastian says, and takes his empty beer bottle. “You didn’t deserve that. I’m not perfect, you were right, sometimes I can’t resist, and then I regret words. I’m sorry I disturbed you, don’t let me interfere with the rest of your night, get out of my kitchen, shoo.”  
  
Chris follows Pratt’s tug instinctively, but glances back. “Do you want help cleaning up, or—”  
  
“He offered. Come on, Director Evans, we’re gonna put you in bed and get you to relax, that’s why we’re here…” Pratt steers them out the door, attention on the client. As it should be.  
  
Sebastian does dishes and tosses bottles into the recycling bin in a flurry of energy that keeps him from thinking, and when that runs out he sinks down into a wooden-backed chair at the table and drops his head into his arms. His whole body’s gone heavy, dragged down, boneless with reaction and remorse. He _did_ manage to shock Chris Evans. He had to be interrupted by his own escort.   
  
He wants to thump his head on the table. Doesn’t have the energy for even that.  
  
He takes a deep breath and hauls himself upright and goes home.  
  
He keeps his work phone with him. He knows he won’t sleep. He has to be on call if Chris and Pratt need anything, he rationalizes.  
  
He throws on pajama pants and a t-shirt with a kitten dressed like William Shakespeare on the front, plus fuzzy striped socks, green and blue. His feet do feel warmer, after a minute or two.  
  
In bed, phone beside him, he stares at the ceiling. The ceiling stares back, placid, unconcerned with human drama. It’s seen a lot of history. Sebastian’s pathetic self is only a flicker in time.  
  
His phone doesn’t ring. Chris and Pratt must be occupied. Not needing him.  
  
He closes his eyes—setting the alarm for a twenty-minute nap just in case—and can’t relax. Images. Earlier fantasies. Awareness of his own inadequacy like slow-burning coals in his gut.  
  
He gets up and grabs his laptop. Distractions. Distractions, writing, maybe that half-finished romantic elopement—  
  
At first he’s not in the mood, and he scowls at the screen and re-reads previous bits and wonders why he set up _that_ plot point, and what the hell the characters’re going to do _after_ the sheltering-from-thunderstorm sex-in-a-cave bit, and why he ever thought he could be a writer. He paces around his bedroom. He meanders out into his kitchen. He makes tea: chamomile and lemon and honey because he likes sweetness. He likes indulgence and sensation. He always has.  
  
He comes back to the bedroom, sits crosslegged on his bed, sips tea, resolutely does not glance at his phone, and tries to think about historical romance. Misunderstandings. Societal expectation. What if society found out about the premarital cave-related sex? What if one or both characters simply didn’t know how to say the right thing at the right time, and words turned into a rift between them, despite how much they wanted to reach out?  
  
After a while he starts typing, slowly.   
  
Around four in the morning he resurfaces, blinking, baffled by output. So many sentences. Where’d they come from?   
  
He thinks this story might be good. He’s not sure, but when he re-reads what he’s written he _wants_ to read it. He wants to know more about these characters and their world.  
  
He yawns, checks his phone—still nothing—and curls himself into bed. Loneliness shivers along his spine, but manageably so. He wants Chris Evans; he wants to be held and told he’s good enough and loved despite fuck-ups. He knows Chris is currently happy, not needing him, and that’s good. And Sebastian himself has written something, and that’s good too, even if it’s terrible writing. An act of creation: a story that hasn’t existed before.  
  
He naps on and off, staying present in case any emergencies come up. His body craves another larger body to nestle into, an arm tucked around him, a kiss to the nape of his neck; but he’s okay. He’s got tea and stories and the knowledge of having helped Chris Evans, even if he subsequently stunned Chris with filthy innuendo; he’s pretty sure that’s a minor hiccup, not as if Chris considers him a possible romantic partner, and that Boston sense of humor doesn’t mind a challenge. So that’s molehill-sized, not a mountain.  
  
He wiggles toes inside striped socks. He sets his alarm, and succeeds in falling asleep for forty minutes this time.  
  
At six, well before anyone else’ll be arriving and potentially witnessing a Hollywood director having spent the night, he runs down to the third floor and makes an abundance of blueberry pancakes and leaves a note outside the waterfall room door saying as much. Then he goes to the gym.  
  
He pushes himself until he can’t think. Weights and metal and sweat and burning lungs and quivering muscles. Blessed blankness. Strength. He can be strong.  
  
He jogs back to the agency, the loyally alert Don in tow, under the assumption that Chris Evans will be long gone by the time they open at nine. Chris is indeed gone, but Pratt’s leaning against Jeremy’s receptionist desk, chatting amiably but with crossed arms.  
  
“I take it the morning went fine,” Sebastian attempts to deflect, moving toward the stairs and his own office and private shower.  
  
“The morning went superb.” Pratt easily matches his pace. Damn. “Twice. You want to know details? We got him sleepy and lazy after the backrub last night, and yeah that led to more, he just opened up for me, super-sweet about it, and then this morning he wanted to try the other way, being on top, and—”  
  
“I need to shower.”  
  
“And I need to talk to you.”  
  
“So clearly one of us will have to compromise. All right, you win, you first.”  
  
Pratt follows him up the stairs and down the hall and through his office door. “What the hell was last night, and I’m asking you this as a friend, trust me, I’m not upset with you or anything.”  
  
His escorts know him too well. “Good to know. Thank you.”  
  
“Seb, come on.”  
  
“You asked me to cook for you. I did.”  
  
“You want to do my appointment follow-up right now? You want me to tell you about the way he kisses, or how big his dick is, which for the record is damn impressive?” Pratt spreads arms. “Go on. Ask me. Anything you want to know.”  
  
“Fine.” Sebastian kicks his door shut, winces—he’ll apologize to it later—and snaps, “Strip.”  
  
Pratt does. His expression’s calm, even amused; he means the offer, ready to answer questions, to satisfy curiosity. This is infuriating.  
  
Sebastian gets a grip on his emotions. Both hands. Hauling himself back from the precipice. “Standard questions. Consensual, comfortable, no marks you didn’t want, no requests you had to decline, any preferences I should make a note of?”  
  
“Yes, yes, nothing, nothing, and he likes being on top, but careful about it. He likes control, but he worries. And he knows he’s not the most experienced with guys, so he checks in a lot. He likes to be reassured.”   
  
“All of it,” Sebastian says, looking at and mentally evaluating evidence of nibbles, love-bruises, a finger-print or two over a hip, “consensual? Even that darker one?” Drying gym-sweat makes his t-shirt stick to his back. Unattractive. Ordinary.  
  
“All of it.”  
  
“Then I think we’re done. Put your clothes back on and let me shower.”  
  
“You don’t want to know…” Pratt pulls up yesterday’s jeans, fixes his belt, casual and unembarrassed. “I thought you’d ask more.”  
  
“Should I?” He wants to. He wants to know everything. The way Chris touches a lover, the way Chris looks when taking control, the way those artist’s hands might caress a hip or a nipple or a cock, the way Chris comes, the moment of ecstatic climax…  
  
No. He shouldn’t know.  
  
He’ll never have that. So he _shouldn’t_ know. Despite the masochistic tendencies that beg: yes, go on, give us more.  
  
“Last night,” Pratt points out, tone deliberately level, “he brought you coffee. You gave it to me, but he brought it for you. And then you made him think about you jerking off. You meant to do it.”  
  
“And you said you weren’t upset with me. Was he?”  
  
“Nah. Didn’t come up. And no, I’m not, but I’m kinda feeling like a sex-provider stand-in third wheel. This morning you made us pancakes. If you want him—”  
  
“You know I do.” No point in lying. He paces aimlessly across his office: to the bathroom door and back. To the spot beside his big window, where glimpses of city life make him feel like part of the world. “You know I can’t.”  
  
“Anthony—”  
  
“Anthony’s not me.”  
  
“He asked about you more. Chris, not Anthony. He thought he was being subtle. Kinda cute.”  
  
Sebastian’s senses twitch. Honed by current unfortunate circumstances.  
  
“No, not like that. I think he’s concerned.”  
  
“What’d he ask?”  
  
“If I knew you were going to have to see a client, and if there was any way to fix your scheduling problem so you didn’t have to.” With measured emphasis: “You told him about a scheduling problem.”  
  
“He called while I was sorting it out. I was tired and he asked what was wrong.”  
  
“So you talked to him.”  
  
“He’s a decent person and a compassionate human being.”  
  
“When we were playing around this morning, showin’ him some stuff, letting him try being on top, he sort of asked…well, he asked if I liked both, being top and bottom, and I said yes, and he said, so you guys do have specialties, though, right, like you can teach me this, and Emily’s great at friend appointments, and what did Sebastian used to do, again? Real smooth.”  
  
“I hope you said it wasn’t relevant. That, or you told him the story about me and Sharon and the vampire scenario.”  
  
“The one you use as a cautionary tale with new hires, so you can say, hey, be prepared for anything, including being fucked by Sharon Stone with a strap-on after she asked you to dress up as a vampire and bite her neck? When you told me that one you said you enjoyed it. Multiple times.”  
  
“Of course I did,” Sebastian says testily, “who wouldn’t, but that’s not the point of that story.”  
  
“Thought it was. Look, if you want me to stop seeing him, if you want him, just say the word.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“What if he wanted to? Don’t say it, just…think in hypotheticals for a minute.” Pratt rakes hands through hair, lets them drop. “What if Chris Evans did want to, and we took him off the client list, and gave him to you?”  
  
Sebastian leans against the wall. Lets it hold him up. “It wouldn’t work.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Even if he hadn’t looked at me across grilled cheese like I’d just horrified him into forgetting the English language—” Pratt opens his mouth, shakes his head, closes it. “—he’s a critically acclaimed new director. Building his reputation. I run an escort agency. And you know I love this place, you know I know it’s worthwhile. What we do. But. Tabloids. Stories. It’ll get spun and embellished and turned into a scandal.”  
  
“Okay, but shouldn’t you ask him if he’d even care about—”  
  
“And say we do go out. Say we even have fun. But then once he gets sick of me, once he’s tired of me, once it’s over, he’ll never come back here. To us. He’s felt safe with us. Relaxed. Comfortable. I won’t take that away from him.”  
  
His escort sighs. “I can’t tell anymore if you’re right or just being a martyr.”  
  
“I’m not wrong.”  
  
“Could be both.” Pratt makes a face, pulls his shirt back on. “And we all get why you aren’t even flexible about this one. This rule, I mean. The last time you took clients…”  
  
“Would be why we now have a restraining order filed and Don following me around, yes.”  
  
“I told him I wasn’t going to say anything about your specialties, but then he said you mentioned the whole dressing up as a cat story already, but he thought you might’ve been joking. I said yeah, that one was true, since you brought it up, but I didn’t tell him anything else.” Pratt’s considering him. Speculation in that gaze. “Didn’t know you told him.”  
  
“I…forgot I had. No detail. If he wants to know, you can give him the general outline. He’s trustworthy.”  
  
“Yeah, I’d say so too. And, I mean, you did pretty much anything anyone paid for, for a while. Casual friendship, one-night stands, top, bottom, dominance, submission, kink…” Pratt ambles toward the door. “I might tell him you’re phenomenal at everything. Prodigious.”  
  
“Big words from someone who spent all night discussing my sexual specialties. Go away and let me shower.”  
  
“Sounds fun. Diverting, even. Gratifying.”  
  
“Why,” Sebastian says, kicking off a shoe in his escort’s direction, an ineffectual threat, “did I even hire you. Um, felicitous. Felicitous shower. In both senses.”  
  
“Anthony hired me, but you approved it. Enjoy yourself in the shower.” Pratt ducks out the door, pops his head back in: “Chris wants to stop by this Tuesday morning. Just to say hi, he’s filming all day, no time for a real appointment.”  
  
“Oh,” Sebastian says, glancing at his laptop even though it’s not open and he can’t see the calendar, “yes, that’s fine—if he only has a few minutes, if you two think you have enough time and you want to use one of the upstairs rooms again, the antique map room or the blue room should be free—”  
  
“We’ll see what he wants on Tuesday,” Pratt suggests, waving a hand in some mysterious magician-like gesture, and disappears.  
  
Sebastian hops into his shower at last. Scrubs sweat out of his hair. Sluices exertion both physical and emotional down the drain. Rapidly calculates last-minute accommodations. Tuesday morning; if Chris doesn’t have a long break, they’ll need to make the most of it. Sex might not be an option given time constraints, he might only want to say hi to Pratt, but they should check on those available rooms just in case—Chris might want privacy even for simply hanging out—  
  
Freshly scrubbed and pink-cheeked and energized, he sits down at his desk, opens up their calendar—  
  
And realizes that Tuesday’s Pratt’s day off. All day.  
  
He sends his escort a text. No answer.  
  
He looks at the calendar again.   
  
Maybe his employees’re working out a day-off trade. They’ll let him know if that’s the case. That would make sense.  
  
And in the meantime, Chris suggested the day, so that part’s not flexible; maybe Chris wants a momentary refuge again, away from film-industry demands. Sebastian can provide that much. And can be on his best behavior, in order to make up for his appalling lack of professionalism last time.  
  
Tuesday morning, then. He writes it in.


	7. tuesday, in the rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sebastian has an unwelcome visitor, and Chris Evans is a great comfort. And some feelings are discussed. At last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going up now because tomorrow might be busy with Conference Things. :-) (for the same reason, I might be slow about replies - I'll see them, I just am doing Academic Professor Stuff for the next day or two)
> 
>  **Minor tiny warnings for:** that former client of Seb's showing up and trying to demand that Seb come back, in a very slightly physical way - bruising strength, grabbing Seb's arm, etc - but nothing escalates beyond that. And they throw him out.

Tuesday arrives cool and grey, a watered-silk day, enchantment and silvery pools under smoked-glass skies. Sebastian glances out his window while getting dressed; pauses to consider spells and witchcraft and mysterious strangers appearing out of the mist. His mysterious stranger would look like Chris Evans, and would notice when he wasn’t feeling well, and would cast a spell over him with the touch of a hand.  
  
With the touch of a hand to his arm. In a stairwell. Bringing him coffee.  
  
What if Chris Evans _did_ want to?  
  
What if a spell _could_ change the world, and Chris could walk through his door and cup Sebastian’s face with those big hands and tilt him up for a kiss?  
  
He’s trying to put both legs into one hole of his skinny jeans. He hops in place, trips himself, lands back on his bed. Grimaces at the jeans, which huddle in shame.  
  
Chris Evans is a good man. Chris deserves someone who knows how to put on pants.  
  
None of his rebuttals in response to Pratt’s question about them together are wrong, though he’s aware that there’s room for interpretation. His current profession isn’t prestigious, but he’s not socially unacceptable; companionship and find-a-friend services’re perfectly decent, and they’ve got some inarguably high-profile clients who’ve publicly praised the agency. Stories would undoubtedly emerge about his own past sexual escapades, but Chris’s reputation would survive. Maybe even garner a bit of newfound awe: satisfying Sebastian Stan, who once spent a legendary night with two famous film producers and a corset and electric toys and champagne.  
  
He pulls on a shirt without really looking, realizes it’s backwards, and pulls it on again. Very nineteen-fifties-meets-present-day, today. Skinny denim, pale grey t-shirt, black motorcycle jacket, black boots. James Dean dressing up for a boy, but trying not to look like he’s dressing up for a boy.  
  
Tuesday, he thinks. Chris Evans.  
  
He texts Pratt again; gets no answer. His previous inquiries— _are you switching days with someone, should I reschedule you, is there something I should know?_ —have been met with _it’s handled, don’t worry, Chris’ll be happy_ plus a winking face. Sebastian feels unfocused concern about this, but trusts his employees.  
  
He takes stairs three at a time, stretching long legs. He reminds Jeremy that Chris is stopping by, then reminds him again once he’s awake. The sky rumbles, lazy and portentous, a tiger yawning and not yet ready to attack.  
  
Because Sebastian’s life is a comedy of errors, the attack does happen.  
  
More specifically: this day, this Tuesday, is the day his disgruntled ex-client decides to show up.   
  
The man thunders in at half-past ten, yelling about how Seb never should’ve stopped seeing clients, they’re meant to be together, Sebastian needs to get back to doing what he’s made for, which according to the tirade involves getting on his knees and sucking cock.  
  
Sebastian, busy having a headache at financial spreadsheets in his office, gets the call from Jeremy, and sighs, and runs back downstairs. They’ve known this is coming, though they’ve hoped it wouldn’t; this is escalation beyond the phone calls and emails, though at least the man doesn’t have a weapon. Not a visible one, he amends, remembering pinches and slaps and spanks from those hands. Older, but strong.  
  
The man hasn’t noticed him yet, busy ranting to no audience, alternately demanding that Sebastian come out and kiss his shoes, and informing the world at the top of his voice that Sebastian’s lucky to be forgiven and taken back. Sebastian’s personal security meets him at the bottom of the steps, and sighs too. “Let me hit him.”  
  
“You might get hurt—”  
  
“I don’t think you know how this protection thing works—”  
  
They both watch the ex-client literally roar at a potted plant.  
  
“If I’m in trouble you can jump in,” Sebastian concedes, and takes a step forward. The potted plant cheers in relief.  
  
This intervention results in him getting pounced on and shoved viciously into his receptionist’s desk, which _then_ results in Sebastian swiping a leg around and knocking his ex-client to the floor, because one of his _other_ former clients works as a Krav Maga instructor and there’d been a few impromptu naked lessons. Don picks events up from there, and hauls the guy off, not without a parting, “you wouldn’t have that bruise if you’d let me hit him, y’know.”  
  
“What bruise?” Sebastian yells back, which is a complete and total lie. His hip throbs. He hobbles over to the desk and leans pathetically against it. He’s getting old. Breakable. Flimsy. “Ow,” he says to Jeremy.  
  
“You know you bruise anytime anyone looks at you too hard,” Jeremy says, emerging from his shield of files and binder-clips. “Some people like that.”  
  
This is true. “You’re so fired,” Sebastian says. “Absolutely fired. Five hundred percent fired. How’d he get in? Don’t we have a restraining order?”  
  
“You fired me last week for pointing out that you hadn’t plugged in your tv right. That restraining order only works if he listens. Just let Don handle it, seriously.”  
  
“Don wants to do things I’m not allowed to know about, legally speaking. I like my tv not working. It’s happier that way. Ow, Jesus, fuck.”  
  
“Really that bad?”  
  
“I’ll live. It’s been a while since I had marks anywhere anyway. Not that this is a _fun_ reason. I’m remembering previous times.”  
  
“Did not need to know that,” Jeremy says, “boss. Go put ice on that or something.”  
  
“You went there first,” Sebastian says, “you started it, put those files back before we’re done today, you think we work in a hurricane?” and limps off upstairs.  
  
He keeps a first-aid kit in his desk for random needs. He fishes it out, shuts his office door, lets out a weary breath, and sags against heavy wood for a second. His hands don’t shake, but he’s good at internalizing. He tries not to think of the other ways the morning might’ve gone. He tries not to think that maybe he just did something very stupid. He doesn’t know what he’s thinking.  
  
He tugs down his jeans and today’s mock-innocent satiny white name-brand underwear—no one’ll come in when the door’s shut, and he’s got essentially no secrets from his employees anyway—and tries to find a good look at his right hip in the corner mirror. The mirror, tall and skinny and black-edged, reflects his contortions dolefully. “Shut up,” Sebastian says to it, “I don’t need the commentary,” and turns most of the way around while attempting to assess how far lurid thundercloud color’s going to spread.  
  
He does bruise readily, swiftly, prettily. Even when the cause doesn’t hurt much. His skin picks color up: lines and marks and redness from cuffs. Former clients’ve enjoyed the sight; Sebastian also enjoys the sight when it’s consensual and desired. He likes belonging to someone, tracing the evidence of their claim on his body.  
  
This one’s decidedly not consensual or desired. He pokes his ass experimentally. Says “Ow” because he’s an idiot who should not poke bruises.   
  
“Oh my god holy fuck,” says a horrified Boston-harbor accent from his _now open_ doorway.  
  
“What the fuck!” Sebastian yelps right back, spinning around, trapped by his jeans, stumbling. “What—how—why—”  
  
“Jeremy said to come up and you’re hurt and _what the hell happened?”_ Chris bolts across the room. Barely even touches the ground. Levitating to his side. “Jesus, Sebastian, what—”  
  
“Just my displeased former client!” He yanks his pants back up, fumbles, hits the bruise, yelps. “Ow—fuck—”  
  
“Your former—how bad did he hurt you, no don’t move, let me see—how’d he get in, shouldn’t you have fucking security or—that’s ugly, that color—”  
  
“I bruise easily—I _have_ security, I didn’t want Don to get hurt—”  
  
Chris lets out a string of profanity that’d make a dockworker blush.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian says, and then isn’t quite sure why or for what. “I, um. I can text Pratt again, I don’t know why he’s not here, well, no, I know it’s his day off but—”  
  
“What,” Chris says, “are you talking about. Come here,” and touches his hip. Sebastian’s higher brain functions shut off. Chris’s hands. On him. Guiding him. Positioning him. “Where does it hurt? Here?”  
  
“Um. Yes?”  
  
“Where else?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Here?” Chris slides hands up: checking his back or his kidneys or something else entirely, Sebastian doesn’t know and can’t think enough to make a guess. Chris is _petting_ him. “Seb? Fuck, is it your head? Dizzy? Can you focus? Look at me?”  
  
Chris’s eyes are millimeters away. Blue and hints of green, aquatic blue like deep oceans, like horizons under sunshine. Sebastian looks because he’s incapable of anything else, and then Chris puts a finger under his chin, nudging it up, and his legs wobble because _holy_ _fuck_.  
  
“Oh god—” Chris’s eyes change. Frightened. And strong arms scoop him up and set him down on his sofa, while Chris gets down on knees on the floor beside him, eye level. “You know where you are, right? You were talking to me just now…”  
  
“I’m fine!” He can’t let this undeserved kindness continue. “I swear. It’s just the one on my hip—that’s from the desk—and, ah, a couple small ones. My arm. My ankle. He doesn’t know how to fight. He surprised me—jumping on me—but I’m not hurt.”  
  
“Except for how you are.” Chris takes his arm, peers critically at small darkening finger-prints. “Can you bend that wrist?”  
  
“Oh,” Sebastian says, “yes, absolutely—” and does. “Really fine. We handled it.”  
  
“How _hard_ did he jump on you?”  
  
“I always bruise like that. I honestly am sorry about this. Not the reception I’d’ve given you. Can I get you a drink, or—”  
  
“Don’t get up.” Chris sits right down on the floor next to his sofa. Seems to’ve forgotten to let go of his hand. Sebastian, lying stretched across couch cushions and being fussed over, feels a bit like one of the more decadent Roman emperors. A nice one, though. He’d try to be a good ruler. He’d likely be terrible at it—he loses fights with his jeans in the morning, as per recent evidence—but he’d try.  
  
He says, “How long can you stay?” which comes out more plaintive than planned. He likes being able to look over and see Chris beside him. He likes the way Chris’s hand feels in his.  
  
Chris makes a face. “Like fifteen minutes. This shooting schedule…”  
  
“Aren’t you the director?”  
  
“Yeah, but we need to make up some time. I was gonna say, if you want me to stay longer I can try. I’d need to make some calls.”  
  
“Don’t delay your film on my account. I’m only enjoying being lazy, now.”  
  
“Cat person.” Chris grins: partly reassured, lingeringly apprehensive, eyes every so often sweeping up and down Sebastian’s body. “ ’Cause, yeah, lazy’s _totally_ a word I’d pick for you. As if.”  
  
“What word _would_ you pick? —no, hang on, don’t. That opens up far too many frightening possibilities.”  
  
“You might be surprised.” Chris’s hand’s gentle, reaching over to stroke hair out of his face. Sebastian holds breathlessly still for this wonder. “But right now? Ice.”  
  
“Wh—oh.” His hand misses the tingle of Chris’s in it. He watches Chris transform a towel from the tiny bathroom and ice from the mini-fridge’s freezer into an expertly-fashioned cold-pack. “You’re good at that.”  
  
“Three siblings, amateur theater productions, camping and rock-climbing.” Chris comes back, hovers—Sebastian obligingly moves legs—and sits down beside him on the edge of the couch. “Plus tap-dance lessons.”  
  
“A dangerous sport, that last one.”  
  
“Those shoes can be deadly in the wrong hands. On the wrong…feet.”  
  
“If they’re on your hands you’re probably doing it wrong to begin with. Though I’m not the one who took lessons, so perhaps I don’t know.” He and Chris figure out at the same instant that Chris is instinctively reaching out to put the icepack on his worst bruise: his hip, which means essentially his ass. Chris goes scarlet. Even his ears blush.  
  
“Here,” Sebastian says, taking the coldness from him, neatly sidestepping awkwardness. His fingers burn. It’s a good reminder. His job: making Chris comfortable.   
  
He has to squirm around to hold the icepack, but chilly relief is worth it. He lets out a groan, not even caring about his audience. “Thanks.”  
  
“No problem. What happened, though? He went after you?”  
  
Sebastian stifles another groan—Chris isn’t going to let this go, and the story doesn’t present himself or the agency as the safe-space refuge Chris needs them to be—and comes up with a brief and hopefully less distressing edited summary of the morning. “So I’m okay. And I think Don has some sort of plan, other than going to the police, which we’ve already done, but I don’t want to be involved. Deniability.”  
  
Chris bites a lip, scrubs a hand through short hair. “Could’ve been so much worse, though.”  
  
“Yes.” These days he and Anthony vet prospective clients because they can: because they have the reputation and the income to be more exclusive. This had not always been the case. And he knows how lucky he’s been, if this is the worst. “But it’s not. And we’ve got it taken care of.”  
  
“The situation,” Chris says, “yeah, maybe, but—what about you? Being taken care of.”  
  
“I handle that too. I’m sorry I’m not better company at the moment. This morning just…” He waves a hand. Winces as a new bruise makes itself known. “Well. You have, what, ten more minutes? Would you like me to—call someone new? Find out where the fuck Pratt went? Make you another sandwich? Talk about Shakespeare?”  
  
“Sebastian,” Chris says softly. “Seb—is that okay? First names, nicknames? Okay—I said don’t get up. Don’t…” A pause, a sigh: quiet and self-directed, almost weary. “Don’t offer to make me a sandwich. God. When I walked in and saw you hurt…”  
  
“It’s only bruises!”  
  
“We’re…we’re friends, right?” Chris looks as if the word doesn’t fit right in his mouth: scraping edges, ungainly, crooked. “I’d like to think…I know I’m your client. I know you care about all your people. I know you don’t…do anything…with clients these days. But sometimes I think—I thought maybe—you said you don’t normally, y’know, take clients up to the kitchen and feed them, either, and I thought—maybe we’re at least sort of…I don’t know…”  
  
His voice trails off. His shoulders droop. Chris Evans expresses emotion with his whole body, and right now he’s a puddle of pathetic wistfulness. Sebastian Stan cannot let this happen. “Chris?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Of course we’re friends.” He puts a hand on the nearest forlorn shoulder. Back to the way this goes, the way they’ve established: himself caring for Chris, being Chris’s rock and steady footing, with the added bonus that every word is true. “You think I tell every random client about my favorite thirteenth birthday present from my stepdad? Half the time I used to give them false stories. Fake details. You, though…I want to tell you the truth. I always have. So, yes. Friends.”  
  
If he were being strictly truthful, he’d’ve added that friendship’s the least of what he feels—closer to _please rip off my clothing with your teeth and then cuddle me afterward because it’s been so long and you feel so kind_ —but he means what he’s saying. He wants Chris to know him. He wants to give Chris himself. He wishes Chris had said a word other than friendship, but that’s that.  
  
Chris’s smile quivers but is real. “Thanks. For everything. For knowing what I need to hear.”  
  
“That’s what I’m made for.”  
  
“Seb…okay, you keep trying to take care of me. To make sure I’ve got everything I could, like, ever want. What if what I want…as your friend…is to take care of you? For the next eight minutes or so.”  
  
Chris’s eyes catch his. And stay there, holding his gaze: earnest and loyal and half-teasing with the phrasing but profoundly gravely serious. Chris means the words.   
  
Chris wants to take care of him.  
  
Sebastian swallows. Nods.  
  
“Okay,” Chris says again, Boston seas rippling with emotion, relief and a tinge of surprise and something else Sebastian can’t quite name. “Okay. You need anything? Anything I can get you? Water, or tea or something, I don’t know, hell, I’ll run out for your favorite hot dog if that would help.”  
  
“Um…” He thinks fast: Chris does need something to do. Action. Motion. “You remember the chocolate box in my desk drawer? Top left? I might want some decadence right now.”  
  
“I can totally do that.” Chris leaps up. Dashes across his office. “Top left? Got it. Anything else? Anything.”  
  
“Thank you. Now come back here. I did promise you you could have one.” He starts to sit up, and Chris’s hand lands on his shoulder, and suddenly pieces come apart.   
  
The world’s too much. Chris’s care and his own recklessness downstairs and the throb of bruises and the need to be here to help Chris cope—the exhaustion of sleepless nights and trying to be good behind cracking armor, the crack that’s widening too fast now with Chris’s question, asking what he needs, and god he needs so much, but he can’t ask—  
  
He draws a ragged breath. “Would you—can you sit with me? Please.” He hates how small his voice comes out. He wants to be held. He wants to be told he’s good enough, he’s cared for, he’s loved even when he’s an idiot. He wants to let go and not think, given into someone else’s hands, for a minute, just for a minute; and he wants that someone to be Chris.  
  
“Of course.” Chris sounds concerned but not as if the request’s bizarre or unwelcome. “Where do you want me?”  
  
“I—I don’t—”  
  
“Shh. It’s okay, I got you, I’ll figure it out.” Chris lifts him effortlessly, plops down onto couch cushions, eases Sebastian into his lap. He’s large and certain and warm, emanating heat like a fireplace, like home and hearth; he’s mindful of bruises, and gets the ice back on the worst one without stopping for embarrassment this time. “You’re okay. You told me you were, and, hey, I always believe you. And you told me I could take care of you, and I’m gonna take your word on that too.”  
  
“Actually _you_ told me you wanted to take care of me,” Sebastian points out weakly, shivering with reaction, resorting to sarcasm, “and I agreed, but if you want to think—”  
  
“Brat,” Chris retorts, amused by this fact. “Chocolate, you said?”  
  
“You—” He’s cut off by fingers at his mouth. Chris is holding one of his secret opulent truffle extravaganzas to his lips. Bittersweet richness and plum wine and cinnamon burst into life: Chris hand-feeding him.  
  
A thick honeyed sense of inevitability descends. Time hangs poised like a curtain: before and after this second, simultaneously never expected and forever known, understood deep down in bones and souls and places without words.  
  
Sebastian bends his head. He nibbles the drop of sweetness from those fingers. He doesn’t remember how to talk, after.   
  
“Yeah, that’s good,” Chris murmurs, “that’s better, right? Helping? Makin’ you feel better?”  
  
“Mmm,” Sebastian manages. Gilded lassitude’s sunk in, saturating every sense. Sheer molten relief and release, turning his body to liquid, boneless and slow as light through stained glass. Subspace, he thinks cloudily, at least the beginnings of the fall; but it’s so instant and so all-encompassing, he shouldn’t be this far under this fast, not with only Chris’s arm around him, with Chris being his friend…with himself cradled in Chris’s lap being hand-fed truffles…  
  
His bruises barely even twinge. Endorphins. Floating.   
  
“What, no answer?” Chris sounds entertained, if somewhat concerned. “I kinda like you like this, all pliant and sweet, lettin’ me help…but I’m a little worried, I mean, that’s not like you.”  
  
“I could insult you if you want,” Sebastian says fuzzily, trying to focus through incandescence, “but I make it a rule to never mock a person feeding me chocolate…”  
  
“Hey, there you are.” Chris grins, feeds him another truffle. This one’s raspberry and crystallized honeycomb, and crackles deliciously over his tastebuds. “I remember you sayin’ you needed rules. To keep you in line.”  
  
“I’m breaking about twelve of them right now…did you have one? Chocolate. Not rules. I said you could, a while ago.”  
  
“Which one of these is your least favorite?” Chris waves the chocolate box at him. “I think I like you breaking your rules. Only twelve?”  
  
“Not counting every other time I’ve talked to you. My… _least_ favorite? I don’t know. I like them all. Why?”  
  
“That’s the one I’m gonna eat.” Chris peeks at the map on the inside lid. “You already had the one with the Boston cream and vanilla crunch center, didn’t you…”  
  
“Yes. Sorry?”  
  
“Nope. How’re you feeling?”  
  
“Better. More centered. Thank you. Um…I know which one you can have. I do like them all, but you’ll like this one. Find the one that says firecracker. Do you trust me?”  
  
“With my life,” Chris concurs, fishing a swirl of dark chocolate out. “I take it you don’t want me to read the description? I should just eat it?”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
Chris shoots him a brilliantly delighted grin—Sebastian ends up smiling back, swept up in exuberance—and tosses chocolate into his mouth. After a second or two his eyes get wider. “ _Pop_ rocks—? And—”  
  
“And chipotle spice and sea salt.”  
  
“That’s _awesome_.”  
  
“I thought you’d appreciate it.”  
  
“Still takin’ care of me.” Chris sets the box down, wraps arms around him. “Thanks for letting me help.”  
  
As a friend. Right. Because Chris wanted to help. Because Chris feels better when friends feel better.  
  
Clouds drift across lightless city sky in the background. Sebastian wants to be sad, could be sad, but can’t manage grief at the moment. He _does_ feel better. More anchored.  
  
Even if Chris is only his friend, that means something: his friend thinks he’s worth helping.  
  
He settles into being held. Lets himself soak up offered hearth-fire glow. Coziness in his chest, in cold limbs, in darkening bruises. Warmth despite ice: a paradox of feeling, and feeling good. “Thanks for being here.”  
  
“Any time.” Chris rests his head atop Sebastian’s. This is no doubt unconscious possessiveness, but Sebastian’s body tingles anyway. Arousal fires gilded arrows down his spine. His cock twitches, stiffens.   
  
_That’s_ not something Chris needs. Not when being so compassionate. So giving of time and heat and protection. So wholly undeserving of Sebastian’s treacherous desires.  
  
He sits up immediately, though every atom screams in protest. “I’m _much_ better. And—time—didn’t you have to go?”  
  
Chris bolts upright to look at the clock. “Fuck—oh, shit, I’m gonna be late—I’m _already_ late—wait, I’m not gonna just leave you, not when you’re—”  
  
“I’ll be all right. You…” He wavers, admits truth: “You did help. Thank you. But now go. I can cope with this and you need to make a movie.”  
  
Chris jumps to both feet but hesitates, holding out hands, taking his, rubbing fingers almost unconsciously over Sebastian’s: as if trying to memorize each line and freckle and joint of bone. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Can I call you? Or text or something?”  
  
“Yes, fine, check on me, whatever makes you happy.” He tips his head toward the door. “Go on. I’ll be here.”  
  
“Yeah,” Chris says softly, eyes doing something complicated, a whole host of emotions warring under the ocean surface, merfolk clashing over what truth to reveal, “you always are, for me,” and squeezes his hands and goes running out the door, late to meet cast and crew and movie magic.  
  
Sebastian, left alone and oddly deflated, shimmering excitement and golden peace giving way to silent emptiness, sits on his couch without moving for a while. His office feels less alive without Chris. His bruises hurt more. His chocolate-box wants to be picked back up in a big expressive hand.  
  
The icepack that Chris threw together out of his towel and ice-cubes is starting to melt.  
  
Towel wrung out and hung up, hip complaining, he limps over to his desk. Feels flattened and lead-lined, like the clouds; and yet not, not completely. A hint of sunshine. A glimpse of sparkle. If he thinks about it.  
  
Chris held his hands. Held him. Said, if not precisely that Sebastian _himself_ was good, that Sebastian letting himself be cared for was good. Meant it.  
  
Chris had been there. With him. That means something. Maybe, Chris had said. Maybe we’re at least—sort of—something. He replays that speech in memory. Thinks about Chris’s expression.   
  
Had _friend_ been the right word after all? Could Chris—  
  
Chris _had_ been there. He grabs his work phone. Calls downstairs. “Why exactly was Chris Evans in my office without any form of warning just now?”  
  
“You said when he came in I should send him right to you,” Jeremy protests, “and I knew you were in your office, and—”  
  
Sebastian holds up both hands in defeat, although his receptionist can’t see. “Yes. You’re right. I said that. Thank you.”  
  
“Was that wrong?”  
  
“No. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.”  
  
“You sound tired,” Jeremy offers helpfully. “Just go home, Seb. I mean, after that shit this morning, you could use a break, and we got this covered, it’s a slow day anyway, one appointment tonight plus Anthony’s thing. We can handle it.”  
  
Sebastian eyes the window. Grey clouds pearlesce across cityscape glitter and green leaves. He could make it upstairs before the rain arrives. He could make spaghetti and garlic bread because he likes garlic bread and it’ll make his home smell fresh-baked and delicious. He could curl up with a book and a heating-pad on sore spots, and he can determinedly not think about Chris Evans, or himself in Chris’s lap, or Chris’s reportedly impressively large cock in his—  
  
He sighs. The first drops of rain splatter, snickering, on glass. “I might. I am kind of tired.”  
  
“See,” Jeremy says, with the tone of a man proven right.  
  
“Call me if anything comes up. Anything at all. Even if you think it’s not important.”  
  
“Can I call you about how to make an omelette to impress a girl?”  
  
“Good cheese, fluffy eggs, find out what flavors she likes and put that inside. I mean in terms of breakfast flavors, not chocolate cake or anything.” With Jeremy one should always clarify. “Do you actually know how to make an omelette?”  
  
“Um…”  
  
“It’s possible you should stick with pancakes.”  
  
“Pancakes…”  
  
“Just take her out to brunch. I’ll text you a few options. Put it on the agency card.”  
  
“Thanks.” Jeremy pauses, then says, in a rush, “You know we all want you to be happy and Chris is a nice guy and he worries about you and it might be time you let someone take care of you and thank you again about the brunch thing?”  
  
Sebastian works his way through this sentence, laughs quietly, feels strangely warmer. “I’m fine. Chris is…a friend. But thank you. _Mulţumesc mult_. Very much.”  
  
“Also your security called to say that he, and I quote, ‘put the fear of Don’ into your douchebag client, and the guy’s leaving the country tonight.”  
  
“Oh. Well. Ah…tell him thank you and I’ll see him when he gets back to the office?”  
  
“Or tomorrow,” Jeremy says. “Right now you’re going home.”  
  
“Am I…all right, yes, I am. Wait, he called you? Not me?”  
  
“We weren’t sure how much you wanted to know.”  
  
“Conspirators,” Sebastian complains goodnaturedly, “all of you. Next you’ll tell me Anthony knows too.”  
  
“Um…”  
  
“Seriously?”  
  
“Sorry, boss.”  
  
Upstairs, as rain billows down, he makes pasta. He plays around with seasoning: more Italian, more spice. He looks out his windows at the watery world: splashed with mirror-reflection in puddles and dotted with bright umbrellas like quixotic flowers across damp pavement. He listens to the leap and chatter and glide of drops along glass, drumming from eaves, flirting with the street.  
  
Chris texts about ninety minutes later. The message comes in on his work mobile: _you doing ok?_  
  
_Fine. Aren’t you filming? Or is rain a problem?_ He’s changed back into pajamas and is pondering heat versus ice for bruises and stiffness; his hip hurts, but he’ll be okay. He’s trying to process the lifting of weight: he won’t have to wonder anymore when the anvil’ll drop, when an angry wealthy man might crash through the front door. In another country, now. Doesn’t seem real yet.   
  
_All indoors today. School set. Lots of kids._ Plus a picture of Chris himself, obviously taken by someone else, crouched down with a backwards baseball cap on and listening intently to a little girl. _Scarlett took that. Says I’m adorable._  
  
_You are._ Scarlett no doubt means Scarlett Johansson, Chris’s star actress for this film and—according to ever-so-reliable Hollywood gossip—one of his oldest industry friends. _I can see it. You’d be good with kids._  
  
_Got a lot of nieces and nephews. Are you resting? More chocolate? Anything I can have sent over?_  
  
_I went home._ He sends Chris a picture: leftover garlic bread artistically arranged on a sleek black plate. _Felt like cooking._  
  
_You went home?_  
  
_My employees formed a united front against me. I’m okay, I swear. And supposedly he’s leaving the country, so that’s that._  
  
_Good,_ Chris sends, followed by _he deserves worse,_ followed by _good for your employees. Count me in on that side._  
  
_Not you too. Oh, this is ridiculous, this isn’t work anymore, here._ He texts Chris one more line. His other number. His _personal_ number. _Use this one_.  
  
Chris promptly does. _New phone? Is that so he can’t find you?_  
  
_He doesn’t know this one. Personal phone. Not agency._  
  
Chris goes silent. Then starts typing. Then stops. Starts again. _I don’t know what to say. Thank you._  
  
_You fed me chocolate,_ Sebastian sends back, along with a candy-bar emoji. _Think we’re past the point of you texting my work phone._  
  
_About that. I wanted to. I liked doing that. For you. Is that okay? I know you have rules._  
  
Sebastian breathes in, breathes out, surrounded by the scent of pasta sauce and the tapping of rain. Chris _isn’t_ that other man, his former client. Chris isn’t oblivious, either; not with those words, that question. They both can see the precipice they’re standing on. Can feel, can taste, the crackle in the air. The temptation of the next step. The sparkling memory of chocolate and Chris’s fingers brushing his lips.  
  
Chris might’ve been seeking only a friend, once. At first.   
  
Cuddling in laps and hand-feeding of chocolate are not friend activities. Not in most cases, anyway.   
  
They’ve crossed over that line, he thinks, or they’re about to. Depending on what he says next.  
  
Lightning flares, white-hot and electric.  
  
_I break my rules for you,_ he answers. _I don’t know yet how I feel about that. The last time I did…you saw the result. This morning._  
  
_I understand,_ Chris sends back instantly. _Sorry._  
  
_No, I wasn’t done, come on, I was still typing!_  
  
_Sorry. :-(_  
  
_I was going to say, I liked you doing that too. I know that much. So I guess what I’m saying is, yes._ He exhales, squeezes eyes shut, hits send. _If you liked it and I liked it, then yes, that’s okay._   
  
Thunder cheers, outside.   
  
One more thought sleets in with the rain. _Chris? Pratt told you it was his day off, didn’t he._  
  
_He might’ve mentioned it, yeah. Is that…still okay?_  
  
_He deserves either a reprimand or a bonus, but yes. You wanted to._  
  
_If I get a vote, bonus. I’m your friend if you want that. I’m here for more if you want that. More holding you. More feeding you chocolate. Wanted to pretty much as soon as I met you. That first day. But no pressure seriously nothing you don’t want ok??_  
  
Sebastian reads this missive, re-reads, finds himself laughing, shaking his head. Chris Evans is Chris Evans. His whole body feels like smiling: this can be this easy, this weightless, wanting and being wanted.  
  
Chris _has_ meant it, he thinks. Every time he’s wondered. Since that first day.   
  
And maybe it’ll go badly and maybe Chris’ll get tired of him, and maybe he’s sick of caring about that. This morning’s bruises ache. And he doesn’t want to be scared.  
  
_I can accept chocolate and cuddling,_ he sends back. _Starbucks coffee. Disney movie sing-alongs. I wanted that too. That first day I met you. Got a favorite Disney film?_  
  
_OH MAN,_ Chris responds, plainly sensing the need for a step back into lightness, _THAT’S LIKE PICKING A FAVORITE CHILD, HOW CAN YOU EVEN ASK, OKAY, PREPARE YOURSELF, WE’RE GONNA BE HERE A WHILE._  
  
_Did you just tell me to prepare myself?_  
  
_…THAT’S NOT FAIR YOU CAN’T MAKE SEX JOKES AND ALSO EXPECT ME TO TALK ABOUT DISNEY_  
  
_Sorry. Go on. I’m prepared. Tell me everything._  
  
_SO UNFAIR,_ Chris says, and then sends a string of happy faces, and _then_ launches into a text-based monologue about classic Disney: _Robin Hood, The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Aladdin, The Lion King_. Excitement in every line, every naming of seven dwarfs and Merry Men. Enthusiasm like the rain, clamoring down, pirouetting on slick pavement.  
  
Inside, staying sheltered and dry, Sebastian talks to Chris Evans: about chocolate-shops and children’s books, about small inconsequential desires and large ones, about favorite Disney musicals and the fact that Sebastian hasn’t given anyone this phone number in a very long time. They don’t talk continuously—Chris has a film to direct and Sebastian gets some writing done—but on and off, whenever Chris gets a break, all afternoon.


	8. friday morning and afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which kisses happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About time. *laughs*
> 
> Next week's MIGHT be a little late; we'll see. I've not had much writing time this week, so I'm actually caught up to myself, unfortunately, in terms of (not) writing ahead. We'll see how much I get done in the next couple days...

By Friday the rain’s mostly cleared out, in the manner of a person with urgent city-soaking business to attend to elsewhere. Chris has been preoccupied with reshoots and on-the-fly editing choices; he’s texted frequently and sent a box of expensive chocolates to the agency address—which made Sebastian’s cheeks flush, a reaction he’d thought he was long past—but hasn’t come in. They’ve been filming city landmarks, gathering atmosphere; Sebastian’s been tempted to run over and say hi, but has also been kept busy. For some reason half the New York elite’s decided to host galas and parties this weekend, and their agency is known for discretion and simple event companionship with no demands. He’s been answering calls and juggling last-minute bookings for two days, and Anthony helps when possible but causes inadvertent other problems that he can’t solve around everything else.  
  
He eats another heavenly drop of chocolate, permits himself a thought of Chris, picks up the phone. “Who is it now?”  
  
“Someone wants to see you,” Jeremy says cautiously. “She’s, um. She doesn’t have an appointment, but she’s pretty, um, famous. She says she knows Chris?”  
  
“Okay…” He studies today’s calendar. “I’ve got twenty minutes before I have to take another call. If you think she’s serious and not a problem customer. Who is it?” Someone who knows Chris? Did Chris send her? What does that mean?  
  
“Um,” Jeremy says. “Scarlett? Johansson? She’s—”  
  
“Starring in his new film…yes, I know…why is she…yes, fine. Send her up.” He stares wildly around the office in the wake of this permission; not as if he doesn’t keep the place professional, but does she know how he feels about Chris, will she be able to read his heart in a line of book-spines or the glint of beer-bottles in the mini-fridge—  
  
“Hi,” Scarlett says, coming in. She’s dressed casually, jeans and boots for fading wet city weather. She looks at him not like a prospective client but like a disapproving parent; Sebastian, who does not face disapproval well, wants to crumble and promise to do better, whatever he’s done.  
  
“Hi,” he says back, getting to his feet. His office. His agency. Right. “Jeremy said you asked for me specifically; how can I help?”  
  
“Are you Sebastian Stan? Chris Evans is your client?”  
  
“I’m Sebastian, I’m a co-owner of this place, and Chris is one of my clients, yes.” Calm. He can do calm. He counts to five in his head. The question jumps out before he’s done: “Is Chris all right?” No reply’d come to his last text, some silly _Little Mermaid_ reference.  
  
She looks at him oddly. “Fine. He’s going over second unit footage. He doesn’t know I’m here. And no, I’m not here to use your services.”  
  
“All right, then,” Sebastian says levelly, “is this the point at which you tell me to stop seeing him, or the point at which you suggest that I’m exploiting him for money?”  
  
Her eyes narrow. “Have you been fucking him?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“So he’s fucking you?”  
  
“I’m not sleeping with Chris. And thank you for the shock tactics.”  
  
Her expression proclaims she doesn’t believe him.  
  
“Look.” Sebastian pinches the bridge of his nose for a second. “Chris is a good person. And a grown man, and—as it happens—a friend. He can make his own decisions. And so far those decisions have not included sleeping with me, which wouldn’t happen regardless. I don’t get involved with clients. Not these days.”  
  
“You run an escort service.”  
  
“We run an agency that offers companionship.” He lets just enough irritation—not anger, Sebastian doesn’t get angry much, though insulting his employees’ll do it—show to make the point. “We offer sex if both the client and the escort agree on terms, but mainly we serve as friends. As buffers against loneliness. As someone to talk to, when a stranger might be easier than anyone else. We’re people, and we help people.”  
  
“Anthony Mackie—”  
  
“My business partner,” Sebastian cuts in evenly, “is providing, by request, special treatment for a first-time celebrity client, and whatever you’ve read on the internet, I’m not going to corroborate or deny it here. We believe in confidentiality. If a client waives that right, that’s his choice.”  
  
She pauses. Takes the seat by his desk, which might be a good sign; he sits down also, at which point she adds, “You’re not what I expected.”  
  
“What did you expect?”  
  
This earns a laugh. “Fair enough. Honestly, I just wanted to meet the guy my good friend and director won’t shut up about. Yesterday we were having coffee on set, and I said it was too sweet, and he stared down into the cup and said pathetically, and I quote, Sebastian likes sweet coffee.”  
  
Sebastian, halfway through a relieved sip of his current cup, barely avoids choking. Chris remembers his flippant comments about syrup and sweetness?  
  
“I admit,” she says, “that I didn’t think you were good enough for him. Without having met you. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”  
  
“It’s…fine. We get that sometimes.” He can’t resist poking back. “Less so these days. Given those celebrity clients.”  
  
She has the grace to flush. “I know. I know it’s not…you shouldn’t have to feel bad about what you do. You help people.”  
  
“Thank you.” He means it; that’s not sarcastic.  
  
“Younger than I thought.”  
  
“Why,” Sebastian asks his ceiling rhetorically, “ _why?_ ”  
  
“What?”  
  
“It’s possible Chris said that as well.”  
  
“Well, you are. Cute, too, in the tall, dark, and handsome way.”  
  
“Hmm.” She’s teasing, he’s fairly sure. “Chris hasn’t said that yet.”  
  
“Oh, he has. I’m surprised he hasn’t to you.” Scarlett leans forward, rests arms on his desk. “Chris is my friend. He’s a giant puppy, okay, big and good-hearted and…the thing about Chris is, he’s sensitive. When I say he’s sweet, he really is. He feels everything. I don’t want him to get hurt.”  
  
“Neither,” Sebastian says, conviction like silk and steel and shield-walls, defending Chris’s heart, “do I.”  
  
She studies his face; Sebastian holds willingly still for scrutiny. Gets a slow nod: a decision. “Okay, then.”  
  
Sebastian tilts an eyebrow at her. “Is that all, or should I schedule an appointment for you with one of our proper escorts? How do you feel about large Australian surfers, or pretty blonde photographers?”  
  
Scarlett laughs, and says, “Maybe the Australian one, we’ll see,” and gets up, grinning. “I have to get back. Behind the scenes interview thing. Secrets of the new film.”  
  
“Bring Chris coffee for me.”  
  
“Will do.” She stops in the doorway in a flicker of red-gold hair. She’s shorter than he is, but he’d place money on her any day in a fight to defend a friend’s honor. “When I said you help people. You should know. He looks happier. Less stressed. Thank you for that.” And she leaves, while he’s caught offguard and rendered speechless by this assertion.  
  
Sunshine flutters through his window. Gold pools between cloud-shadow at his feet. He can’t move, stunned by casual revelation.  
  
Chris is happier, noticeably happier, because of him. Chris likes texting him. Chris thinks about him even when he’s not around. He wants to dance around his office. He wants to laugh out loud and write a love story. He’s astonished by happiness: Chris’s and his own, shared.  
  
He settles for diving onto his sofa, hugging the nearest pillow, and burying his face in it, grinning.  
  
He can have this. Maybe, maybe, this is allowed.  
  
He happily fields three calls regarding tonight’s parties and meeting places and times. He beams at his laptop.   
  
His phone rings. Personal, not professional. He lunges for it. “Chris?”  
  
“Hey.” Harried: Chris snatching time between scene set-up, no doubt. “Is Scarlett there? I swear to god I will fucking fire her, I don’t care if she’s my friend, if she said anything to hurt you—”  
  
“She’s an excellent friend to you, and no, don’t fire her.” He flops into his desk chair, dangles legs across one merry armrest, loves the patriot indignation of that voice. “She only just left; how’d you even—”  
  
“She told someone in wardrobe where she was going. Are you okay?”  
  
“I’m spectacular. Did you really look at coffee and think of me? I’m touched.”  
  
“We had hazelnut creamer at craft services. You said you liked it. That’s not appropriate. I mean her, not you and the creamer.”  
  
“Depends on what I’m doing with the creamer.” Which results in a thoroughly satisfactory roar of laughter on the other end. “She was looking out for you. And it’s fair; this business might be relatively socially acceptable these days, but that doesn’t mean she wants her best friend in it. Anyway she ended up being quite nice. Ask her when she would like a large Australian surfer on her doorstep. I’ll even put a bow on him.”  
  
“I don’t know what that means,” Chris says, “but I feel like I should be nervous. Should I be nervous?”  
  
“Don’t I take care of you?” He swings a leg idly. Lazy pleasure, almost childlike: the giddy secret thrill of flirting with Chris. “How’s the film?”  
  
“I think I might like taking care of you, if you ever let me. Actually I was gonna ask—this afternoon we’re filming like three blocks from your agency, just some background shots left today, but would you be able to come by? I can’t leave, I’ve got so much fuckin’ footage to sort through, but I can apologize for my idiot best friend in person. And I have a present for you. Um. Not anything big. Practical. Would that be cool?”  
  
“Um…” He debates pros and cons with his laptop and schedule and personal morals and even more personal desires. His heart wins. “Yes. Quickly, and I might need to take a call, but yes. Plus I get to see your movie set. I’ve never been near anything this scale, only small-budget stuff.”  
  
This prompts an interested noise and a question of, “Wait, you’ve worked on movie sets, how did I not know that?” Sebastian offers the standard truthful explanation about himself and Mackie and failing to Make It in the Big City and starting up a companionship agency instead, but elaborates, “Honestly I both miss it and don’t. I love the industry, the storytelling, and I always tried to put my heart into even _Law & Order_ Extra Number Three, but I don’t know if I ever put it first. There’s so much else I love—live theater, creative writing, cooking, helping people—I wonder sometimes if casting directors could sense that I was pondering a career as a Shakespearean reenactor or a writer or an extremely sex-positive sex therapist, while I should’ve been practicing technobabble for a cold reading for a Star Trek audition. I kept being torn between pieces of myself, and then this place happened, and that’s what I did.”  
  
“And now you do all of that,” Chris sums up. “Kinda like acting, if you think about giving people nights of fantasy. Sex therapy. Helping people. Definitely cooking. Creative writing?”  
  
“Oh. It’s a hobby. Spare time.”  
  
“What spare time, I’m not even convinced you sleep. What do you write? If you want to tell me, I mean.”  
  
“Um,” Sebastian says vaguely, blushing for no good reason, “short stories, mostly…maybe a novel, sometime…romance? Historical romance? Fantasy and science fiction?”  
  
“Can I read one?”  
  
“I’ve…never let anyone…”  
  
“Oh. Never mind, no problem, forget I asked. Are you coming over?”  
  
“On the way.” He’s texting Jeremy, who sends back a disturbingly suggestive string of emoji characters, promises to field the incoming client call, and tells him to go get his man. “And…maybe. Not yet. Someday. Not a no. I’d have to think about which one.”  
  
“You—” Chris stops, laughs. Sebastian recognizes that sound: too much unanticipated happiness to hold inside. “I’d love that. If you would. Whenever you want.”  
  
“I’ll see you in a minute,” Sebastian says, and bounces out of the office and down the street, grinning at clouds and sunbeams as they play tag across the sky. The air’s crisp and bright with petrichor pleasantness, plants and earth and stone getting drunk on water. His boots tap against pavement; his jacket cuddles up and keeps him cozy, snug in aged dark leather.  
  
He jogs around the corner and down to the filming location—not hard to find even without Chris’s directions, being literally three blocks away and guarded by cranky production security. It’s not a big set-up, being only background and establishing city shots, no stars required; cameras, one street-level and one above, pick up extras wandering down the street, into coffee-shops, into a bookstore. A balloon drifts skyward in friendly yellow, reflecting lemon sun.  
  
“Hi,” Sebastian says to the closest slab of security guard. “Um. Chris invited me? Chris Evans,” he edits hastily. “Your director?”  
  
“Sure he did,” the man says. “And I’m sure he knows your name, too.”  
  
At this point Sebastian begins debating the merits of pulling out his phone to text and potentially interrupt Chris, or simply waiting, or putting acting skills and a talent for charm to work and convincing the skeptical hulk that he’s some sort of studio representative. Fortunately, another option arrives in the form of a swan-slim girl with intricate jet-black braids and a clipboard, who introduces herself as one of the personal assistants and whisks him back behind barriers.   
  
The guard looks mildly disappointed. Sebastian waves at him just to be annoying, and starts a conversation with the girl, who is also a fan of leather jackets and punk-rock boots, and they bicker amiably over the durability of the asymmetrical zipper trend until she deposits him in front of a huddle of cameras and bent heads. “Mr Evans? I found him. Also I checked in with your brother and he says Dodger’s doing fine and being spoiled rotten by your nieces and nephews.”  
  
Sebastian’s looking at Chris Evans’ shoulders. He knows those shoulders: broad and fascinated by the world and outlined in the blue of a shiny jacket. He wants to step closer and put his arms around Chris from behind and kiss the back of that neck, above the jacket’s collar.   
  
Chris straightens up and turns around. And the whole world blurs: nothing in focus but Chris Evans smiling at him.  
  
“Hey,” Chris says, unaccountably pink-cheeked. “You came.”  
  
Sebastian bats eyes at him. “Not yet. I’m not even breathing hard.”  
  
One of the other bent heads, near the cameras, snorts with muffled laughter. Another one kicks him.  
  
“Sorry,” Sebastian says. “I may’ve accidentally derailed your—assistant directors?—from their job.”  
  
“First AD, editor, writers, sound effects guy. And nah, they’re beyond help, they were makin’ jokes about cream in coffee the other day.” Chris grins at him, taking a step closer, suddenly in a patch of sunlight. “Want to go for a walk and leave the flying monkeys behind?”  
  
One of Chris’s crew promptly makes monkey sounds. Another one offers jauntily, “Want us to requisition some lube from the prop guys, in case you need it on your…walk?”  
  
Chris whips around and glares.  
  
Sebastian says sweetly, “It’s kind of you to offer, but you might need it for your own bananas,” and Chris’s crew cheers and applauds and wolf-whistles as they go.  
  
They wander down the block, not hand in hand but close enough for it: shoulders bumping, brushing, breathless. Chris puts a hand on his elbow to steady him when a bike messenger zooms past. Sebastian’s in no danger of falling but leans into the touch. The overhead camera hovers, not rolling, a watchful benevolent eye.  
  
“Dodger’s my dog,” This is in answer to the unasked question; Sebastian’s more or less guessed as much. “He’s a rescue. He’s a total cupcake, adores my sister’s kids, loves attention. Oh, wait, cat person, sorry.”  
  
“I like dogs too. And yours sounds like a sweetheart.”  
  
“He so is. I miss him, but he’s in good hands while I’m gone.”  
  
They wander a few more steps, companionably.   
  
“Sorry it’s not more exciting. The set.”  
  
“No, I like it. The scene-setting. Atmosphere. Action hanging in the air. The sense of place.”  
  
“God, you’re perfect,” Chris says, “how did you ever say yes to me?” and steers him toward a temporary windbreak behind a greenscreen backdrop. “How’re you feeling? After—y’know.”  
  
“Bruised, but better. It’s starting to sink in that he’s gone.” A tiny bit of fluff—a stray will-o’-the-wisp, a dandelion-puff—is caught in Chris’s beard. Sebastian, feeling brave, reaches out. “There.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“You had a…” He can’t think of the word. His fingers tingle, having touched Chris’s face. “Fuzz.”  
  
“Oh. Um. Thanks.” Chris bites his lip, starts to reach out, suddenly remembers and touches Sebastian’s forearm. “How’s this one?”  
  
“Mostly healed.” He pushes up his sleeve as far as it’ll go, gives up: “You can’t tell. But it’s barely even there.”  
  
“I brought you—” Chris fumbles around in a jacket-pocket, blushes, thrusts a small jar at him. “Our stunt guys swear by this stuff. For their, um, bruises. Y’know. I just thought.”  
  
“Hmm,” Sebastian says, reading the label. “Same one we use, back at the office.”  
  
“Oh…if you don’t need—”  
  
Sebastian holds _his_ jar away from Chris’s embarrassed hand. “No. You gave it to me. It’s mine now. Besides, the one in my desk’s almost empty.”  
  
Chris’s eyes widen.  
  
“I’m just clumsy! I’m not getting spanked over my office desk!” Not more than once in the past. Twice. Three times. Not more than three times.  
  
The approaching personal assistant, striding toward his director with a clipboard, performs an abrupt about-face and scuttles away.  
  
“Steve, wait!” Chris yells, and then gives up. “I should probably go sign that…and explain…what am I explaining, again?”  
  
“That nobody’s getting spanked in anyone’s office, and your assistants should get a raise for putting up with us?”  
  
“No spanking in the office. Got it. Hang on, what about _not_ in the—”  
  
“Are you offering to spank me?” Sebastian brushes hair out of his eyes, too clumsy to be seductive, stumbling over flirtation. Chris turns him into a half-grown kitten: big-pawed, overeager, skidding around corners and colliding with the world. “That can be arranged.”  
  
His work mobile vibrates in his pocket. He ignores it.  
  
Chris reaches out. Helps with the hair this time. Lets his hand linger, fingertips skimming Sebastian’s face. “That’s not the same as you wanting it. Is _this_ okay?”  
  
Sebastian puts his own hand up. Covering Chris’s. Their fingers link. “Definitely okay. And I like being spanked. For the record.”  
  
His phone buzzes again. Steve the personal assistant’s hovering at a tactful distance.  
  
“Good to know.” Chris takes his hand, brings it to lips, kisses it: an old-fashioned courtly gesture, and Sebastian’s head over heels in love. “For the future. Hey, can I ask you about something?”  
  
“I prefer being submissive, but I can switch if you want?”  
  
“Not my question, but now I’m gonna be thinking about you on your knees all day, thanks.”  
  
“You know the terms?” Chris hadn’t been thrown at all by the vocabulary of submission. Sebastian’s brain consequently instantly overloads with images of Chris in black leather, Chris cracking a flogger through the air, Chris giving cool-voiced Dominant commands.  
  
Sebastian himself up on a cross. Or down on his knees. Naked. Hands behind his back. Begging. Allowed to come with Chris’s cock down his throat, or getting himself off by rutting against Chris’s boot, and afterwards lovingly licking that black leather clean—  
  
His fizzing brain, at this point, short-circuits. He nearly walks into a lamp-post.  
  
“Not, like, in any detail.” Chris grabs his elbow again. Takes over steering, because Sebastian’s motor functions are not to be trusted. And keeps answering, plainly not having any idea what fantasies’re happening beside him. “I thought, a while back…I knew I liked being in control, ’s why I like directing, not so much yelling at people but just makin’ sure everything goes according to plan, and I feel better when I know what’s coming, when I’ve set up a scene…so I looked up some stuff, like, I figured porn wasn’t gonna be accurate, so I did some reading. Never tried any of it though. And that was, like, five or six years ago.”  
  
“Oh,” Sebastian says, utterly at a loss for words. For so many reasons. “You—you didn’t tell me that. Us. At our—when I first talked to you. Interview.”  
  
“I was trying not to picture you, um.” Chris squeezes his hand. “On your knees. Trying really hard not to. I’d just met you. And…I guess I was embarrassed. I mean, hey, hi, I’m mostly looking for a friend and a date to this party, you guys’re known for companionship services, but also if you happen to have anyone who’s into kinky sex and doesn’t mind a guy with zero practical experience…”  
  
“But excellent instincts. The way you took care of me, after… If I keep thinking about this I won’t get _any_ work done today. What was your question?”  
  
“I did say I like getting to take care of you. Um, I was thinking I should see Pratt again?”  
  
The earth vanishes under Sebastian’s feet. Empty space. Numb and barren.  
  
“Just to say thanks,” Chris goes on, apparently unaware of the sudden loss of gravity his words’ve caused. “Like, lunch or something. Not for sex or anything. But, I mean, he’s been great, super-helpful, and I’d kinda like to still be his friend, maybe, outside of work? And there were a couple things I wanted to ask him.”  
  
“Oh.” His lips move, but he can’t feel them. He can’t feel anything. “Yes. I’ll need to check on scheduling. We’ve been busy.”  
  
“Seb?” Chris tugs on his hand. Pulls him closer. “You okay?”  
  
No. No, I can’t be okay, I’m never going to be okay again, because I’m not enough for you. I took this step, I came here for you, I let myself want—and I’m not _enough_ —   
  
But he knows that. He’s known that all along. He lets go of Chris’s hand. Not his to hold. “Yes, sorry. Only thinking. Wednesday might work if you’re planning on lunch. I should get back to the office. I can confirm his availability for you.”  
  
“Sebastian,” Chris says again, newly worried, glancing at his hand. “You don’t sound like you. Did I do something—did I say something that—that reminded you of—something you don’t want to think about? Does your hip hurt? Jesus, I’m an idiot, I made you walk over here—”  
  
“I’m not fragile, Chris.” He’s not. He’s determinedly not. He waves at Steve the PA, who shakes his head vehemently, refusing to be summoned. “I think you have something to sign, and I do have clients to call back.”  
  
“Did I—”  
  
“No, you didn’t. Nothing like that.”  
  
“Please,” Chris tries, scared, unhappy. Watching him take a step away across damp drying pavement, the way a puppy watches an owner leave when it’s been told to stay: uncomprehending, sure he’s done wrong, pleading. “Was it that I want to have lunch with Pratt? You can come too, I want you there, I didn’t mean it like that, I just didn’t want to stop seeing him as a friend, but if you—”  
  
Sebastian pauses. Reverses the last step: coming back. The heart-bruise twinges, fades a fraction, reminds him that walls go up for a reason. He tries extremely hard to push them down, as sunlight paints a stripe of possible optimism through Chris’s hair.   
  
“I won’t see him again if you think it’s not appropriate. Or if you don’t want me to.” Chris holds out one hand. Not a command. A question.  
  
“It’s…all right,” Sebastian says, and puts his fingers into Chris’s callused ones. They close around his tightly, with relieved strength. “I’m not normally this…off-balance. It’s been a complicated week. A few weeks. Of course this is fine, you can have friends, that’s what we hope to give you. I’m sorry.”  
  
“No, I am.” Chris draws him closer, reels him in, until he ends up in the protective circle of those arms. Their foreheads touch when Chris leans in. “I said that all wrong. Should’ve started with the part about wanting you there. I know how much you’re giving me, just bein’ here. Thank you.”  
  
“Really _not_ fragile,” Sebastian grumbles, and leans in and up and presses his lips to Chris’s startled ones, under sunshine and scampering clouds.  
  
Chris laughs, a wondering sound, a breath of disbelief. And kisses him back: firmer now, sure and wild and thunderous as a pulse-beat, as the leaping of a heart. One big hand slides up to cradle Sebastian’s head, to tangle in hair, to hold him in place, not hard but purposeful and deliberate; Chris’s body’s hot and male and aroused against his. Sebastian falls into the kiss and the hold and forgets everything that isn’t himself belonging to Chris.  
  
They resurface gradually, flushed and laughing and clinging to each other. Chris ducks in for one more fleeting kiss, a tease, a nip at Sebastian’s mouth. Sebastian’s hand’s found its way under Chris’s shirt.   
  
Chris doesn’t push for more. No questions about sex or touching anyplace that’d raise the idea. Only kisses given and traded and shared.  
  
Steve the PA applauds.  
  
“Oh fuck,” Chris mutters, ears red; but he’s beaming. “Okay. I, um, I have to—but that was—that was—you’re—wow.”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian says dazedly. “Yes.”  
  
“Okay,” Chris says again. “Okay? Wow. Okay.”  
  
“I’ll see you Wednesday.”  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
“Not soon enough?”  
  
“No.” Chris puts a hand, both hands on his shoulders. Whole heart’s worth of truth in the words. “Five minutes wouldn’t be soon enough.”  
  
Sebastian ends up laughing, ears hot, thrilled beyond measure despite embarrassment at sincerity.  
  
Chris sighs. “I don’t want to promise anything sooner. Shooting schedule…”  
  
“I know. It’s a busy weekend for us anyway. It’s all right. Can you…” He licks his lips. Anticipation, nervousness, desire. “Would you text me, though? Whenever you want. Whenever you’re free.”  
  
“Like you need to ask,” Chris says, and kisses him one more time, swift and glorious, as if Sebastian’s mouth’s a temptation unable to be resisted. Steve the PA’s texting someone else, and glancing at them, and grinning and texting more, lounging like a popcorn-satisfied audience against the closest wall.  
  
Sebastian wanders back to the office in a blissful cotton-candy daze, pink and luminous and suffused with sugar to the point of sharpness, the way he loves feeling: the tug of Chris’s hand in his hair simultaneous with the tender dominion of Chris’s lips claiming his. Sunshine’s wonderful. The sidewalk’s wonderful. The front door of the agency’s wonderful. Jeremy’s wonderful, and gives him a disconcerted stare when he says as much.  
  
“Am I not fired? Or not not-fired?”  
  
“Don’t be absurd, when did I ever fire you…did I miss anything?”  
  
“Are you on drugs or something, and can I have some? No, not much. Margarita called. To confirm that she’s seeing you Tuesday.”  
  
Sebastian freezes in place at the foot of the stairs.  
  
“I said yes,” Jeremy says obligingly.  
  
Oh, Sebastian’s mouth shapes, on autopilot.  
  
“I sent you the details,” Jeremy finishes. “Time and hotel and all that.”  
  
“Oh…” He can’t breathe. He can’t think. He’d forgotten. “Yes. Thank you. That’s—very organized of you. Thank you.”  
  
Jeremy puffs up at this praise.   
  
“I’ll be upstairs,” Sebastian says slowly, “can you…handle calls for a while? Tell everyone we’re booked solid in any case, unless it’s Sharon Stone, in which case send Paul—R, not B—her direction and tell her I of course regret not seeing her personally anymore. I’ll answer email and sort out the scheduling, I just…have a headache, so if you could talk to people, that’d be—”  
  
“No problem,” Jeremy dismisses, “I got it,” and opens a drawer and tosses ibuprofen at him. “Happy drugs wearing off?”  
  
“I’m not on—”  
  
“Kidding, kidding, I know you haven’t, in, like, four years or whatever. You looked all floaty when you came in. Allergies?”  
  
“…what?”  
  
“The headache? Being outside? Allergies? Allergic to work? I totally get that one.”  
  
“Which is why you don’t get any work done,” Sebastian says, untruthfully and jokingly meant, functioning ninety-nine percent on reflex; and he thanks his receptionist for the painkillers, takes three plus a sip of water from the proffered bottle, and makes his way upstairs.  
  
In his office, he huddles into his desk chair. Pulls legs up and hugs them to his chest. Lets the thick antique wings of furniture enfold him. Tuesday. Margarita. She’s a friend. A friend who’ll make him earn his fee for the night.  
  
And Chris is…more than his friend. Chris is…  
  
They haven’t named this. Himself and Chris.   
  
Chris must’ve forgotten Sebastian’s upcoming appointment. They both had. And he doesn’t know, doesn’t have any clue, how Chris will feel upon being reminded.  
  
Despite patches of sunshine skittering across the wide floorboards, his office shivers with cold.  
  
They’re _something_ , or beginning to be: himself and Chris. Chris knows what he does—what he used to do—for a living. Chris has never been confronted with the reality of it; has been reassured that he’ll never need to be, since Sebastian himself’s retired and doesn’t take on appointments with clients.  
  
Except in emergency rescheduling cases. Except when they’re old friends, and he’s promised.  
  
Those fantasies—himself kneeling for Chris, himself being wanted by Chris, himself given to and accepted by Chris—pop like soap-bubbles in summer, punctured by broken heart-pieces.  
  
He should text Chris. He should remind Chris right now. That way Chris can make a choice. Sebastian won’t apologize for this life; no reason to. He makes people happy. He doesn’t see clients anymore for personal reasons, which Chris knows, but that’s no reflection on this agency or his escorts. That’s not the problem.  
  
The problem is that he told Chris one thing— _I’m retired,_ with an implicit promise of _you’ll never have to watch me sleep with anyone else—_ and it’s not untrue, but in this specific instance: it’s a lie.  
  
He _should_ text Chris. Can’t bring himself to. Can’t uncurl stiff legs from his ball in the chair.  
  
He closes his eyes. How, how, how has he gotten this so wrong? He’s tried, he’s tried, but every step falls out from under him, every time he thinks maybe he’s earned a touch of Chris Evans’ hand, he’s managed to fuck it up again—he’s _not_ good enough, how could he ever think so, he causes disasters even without meaning to, and of course Chris won’t want him anymore—Chris asked to see Pratt again—  
  
His lungs hurt. Pressure. Jewel-black spots behind closed eyes.   
  
“No,” he says aloud, on a frantic gasp of air. “No.” Chris sent him chocolates. Chris bought him a gift.   
  
Chris _kissed_ him. Three times.  
  
He sticks a hand into his jacket-pocket. The jar leaps readily to hand, anxious to assist. It would be; Chris’d bought it. He wraps fingers around the shape. Solid. Tangible. Hard. Healing.  
  
He’s shaking, but the shaking stops, bit by bit.  
  
After that, he figures out how to breathe.  
  
After that, he gets up and gets a bottle of water from the mini-fridge, and consumes it in small measured sips.  
  
After that, he makes a phone call. Even-voiced. Professional.  
  
Pratt comes running into the office four minutes later, faster than Sebastian would’ve guessed. “You wanted to see me?” His expression’s open and worried and friendly.  
  
“Chris Evans wants to see you one more time. Lunch. Wednesday. A thank-you, I think.” He doesn’t add that Chris wants him to come. He’s not sure Chris will, by then.  
  
Pratt blinks, shuffles feet, makes confused syllables. “You…I thought…I mean, yeah, sure, I like the guy, but…”  
  
“But you thought you were setting us up? You were successful. I like him. It won’t work out. Leave it at that.”  
  
“No…why not, again? I’m confused.”  
  
“I’m putting on a cock ring and bending over for Margarita on Tuesday,” Sebastian says, and is proud of his ability to say this without changing expression. “Chris thinks I’m retired. Wednesday at one?”  
  
“You think he wouldn’t understand an exception?”  
  
“I think I told him one thing, and this is too much to ask of someone who could have anyone he wanted, and who’s been putting up with my refusing him this whole time. One o’clock, yes or no.”  
  
Pratt lets out a defeated grumble. “Yes. You’re wrong, but I can’t quite see how to…” With poking-holes finger-pointing gestures: “How to get through.”  
  
“I sign your paycheck. I’ll poke holes in those if you make me. Go away now.”  
  
“Anthony—”  
  
“Don’t,” Sebastian says, continuing to stay calm, “distract Anthony from his celebrity client and deservedly good time, please, he does enough on our behalf.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“I have work to do.”  
  
Pratt starts to leave in the wake of this dismissal; hovers awkwardly in the doorway, comes back. “Seb?”  
  
Sebastian looks up from staring blankly at the polished surface of his desk, instantly alert. “Something going on?”  
  
“No, not exactly…more about you.” Pratt scrubs a hand through his own hair. Shifts weight. “You doin’ okay?”  
  
“Me?”  
  
“Are you still, y’know, is your hip…you weren’t hurt, right, from that shit with He Who Must Not Be Named?”  
  
“I’ve still never read Harry Potter.”  
  
“You’re like the last person on earth who hasn’t. I’m getting you the set for your next birthday. Seriously, though, did you get hurt?”  
  
Sebastian shrugs, continuing to be at sea. That’s not the question he’d expected. “No? Bruises, but I’m fine. Mostly healed. Why, again?”  
  
“You seem tired.” Pratt steps closer to the desk, eyes unexpectedly grave. “Distracted. Something’s up, and I don’t mean you’re not singlehandedly takin’ care of all of us, ’cause you always do, but we’re concerned.”  
  
“We.”  
  
“Well…me, Jeremy, Don, Emily, a couple others…you sure you’re okay?”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian says, “perfectly all right, and apparently the subject of office gossip, how thrilling.”  
  
“And a little bitchy.”  
  
“Which is coming out of your next check, thank you.”  
  
“Maybe you just need to get laid.”  
  
“I do _not_ need to—”  
  
“Seb.” Pratt puts hands on the desk, leans in. “Look, any one of us’d do it. Gladly. Ask anyone here, anyone you want, the rest of us’d just cheer the lucky person on. We know what you’re into, what you kinda…need…and—”  
  
“I’ve never slept with _any_ of you!”  
  
“Who do you think picked up two of your former clients? And Lizzie has one more. Impressively kinky, boss.”  
  
“Please stop talking _yesterday_.”  
  
“I’m just saying.” Pratt holds up hands in surrender, which is currently a hideously appropriate word. “We care about you. If you haven’t been…and, y’know, you need one of us to grab a cane or wrist cuffs or a flogger, and tell you you’re doin’ okay, you’re good, you’re doin’ good by us, if you need us to take you out of your head and hold you after, we so will. You’re here for us, we’re here for you. You can lean on us too.”  
  
“I…don’t even know what to say.” Sebastian puts his face in his hands for a minute, elbows propped on his desk; not thinking, only hiding while his heart-rate levels out. It’s been a fucking bizarre day. “Thank you. I mean that, I do, thank you to you and to everyone. That…means a lot. That you’d offer. I’m not just saying so.”  
  
“But you won’t say yes.”  
  
“If I don’t sleep with my clients, I incredibly more don’t sleep with my employees.”  
  
“Ems said you’d say that, but I figured I’d let you know the option’s here.”  
  
“Tell Emily she’s right, and I’ll…give you all some sort of bonus. Plus summer-berry cupcakes. If you promise to never bring this up again.”  
  
“Sold on the cupcakes,” Pratt says, “anything you bake, for fucking ever, especially with that orange-zest frosting, but no promises not to catch you if you push yourself hard enough to fall,” and Sebastian concedes that this is fair enough—it is; he’d take the same stand regarding any one of them—and banishes him from the office for the rest of the day, but more nicely this time.  
  
Alone, he steps over to his window. Touches fingertips to glass. Laughs at the absurdity of the world: a breath of hopeless hysterical heartache. The windowpane’s warmth, bathed in sun, kisses his fingers as if trying to tell him the world’s okay.  
  
The world’s not okay. Upside down. Inside out. Hollowed out.  
  
Even his escorts think he needs to get laid. To be taken apart and taken care of.  
  
Which will indeed happen. With someone who’s done as much to him, for him, before.   
  
It’ll happen, oh yes. Soon. Tuesday.  
  
He needs to tell Chris.   
  
He can’t bring himself to, because he is a coward. Because it is possible that Margarita could call and cancel, because they’ve got three days before Tuesday, because he might think of a way out of this predicament before then, with sunshine at his fingertips and Chris’s healing salve in his pocket and the memory of Chris’s lips on his own.  
  
He thinks, surprised: I thought about finding a way forward.  
  
He smiles a little, and tips his head against thick sunwarmed glass. The world waves tree-branches back from outside, and Sebastian breathes out and permits the image to swim back up: Chris in full Dominant gear, yes, but this time he thinks of aftercare. Of big kind hands and gentle caresses and kisses and praise and tenderness when cane-stripes and bruises rise. Of anguish followed by sweetness, like languorous cleansing rainfall after the lightning-flares that tear glorious release through the sky.


	9. tuesday night, wednesday morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sebastian sees a client, and then sees Chris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one day late!
> 
> Not really warnings, just, um, brief (it's not super-successful, not in a getting hurt way or anything, just not working) opening with Sebastian on assignment. Then lots of caretaking.

“Sweetheart,” Margarita says, and taps his cheek with the riding crop: light enough to be a kiss. “You’re not actually here. What’s wrong?”  
  
Sebastian, naked on his knees with hands tied cruelly behind his back—she’s good with knots, and she’s been trying to get him out of his head from an hour now—says automatically, “Sorry, Mistress,” and then sighs and gives up. She knows him too well. “It’s not you, it’s me?”  
  
“Of course it is.” But her mouth quirks at him: curious. “Fine. Get up. Come here.” Cool fingers loosen harsh knots; he exhales as pressure lifts. This room’s a gilded treasure-box, scarlet and aureate and ebony. She likes this one, out of the agency’s redecorated options; she won’t stay the night, but she’d grinned at him, eyes sparkling, when he’d taken her up and opened the door.  
  
They’d gone to dinner first, an intimate but casual Indian place a few blocks away. Margarita’s good company, merry and spontaneous and lazily asserting command in small ways, setting the tone for the evening. She’d ordered for him, not his favorite menu option but not anything he actively dislikes; she knows his preferences from years past, and had smiled and set a hand on his wrist and let fingers bite down over white tablecloth linen.  
  
He’s been trying hard to please, cock trapped in its gilded cage, since the amiable stroll through sundown glitter and back to the agency’s guest floor. He’s tried to be good. Pleasuring her with lips and tongue, which he’s quite skilled at; making her gasp and squirm and grow wetter and wetter while she issues breathless commands; lying across her lap while the crop cracks splendid welts over his backside. She likes hearing him cry and cry out, likes the power of making him squirm; he likes that too, getting lost in sensation.  
  
Or he normally does.   
  
Or he did.  
  
Or he used to.  
  
Tonight he really is trying and she deserves his full attention, but other images keep wandering in. Other desires: Chris’s hands on his nipples in place of her slender ones, Chris’s voice telling him he’s being so good, taking every impact, skin glowing pink…Chris at dinner, not deliberately ordering something not his choice but asking him first and then telling their waiter on his behalf…  
  
Chris kissing him. Tender and astounded and heartbreakingly sweet, bathed in sunlight.  
  
That one’s real. That hand in his hair, that mouth descending to claim his.  
  
Margarita’s hand tugs at his hair, which bewilders him for a moment. _This_ is real. Right.  
  
“Sebastian,” she says again, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her hair falls in a luxurious golden tumble over one shoulder. She’s lovely; she’s a friend. “No, back down. On your knees. But let me see those. Your wrists.”  
  
He holds them out obediently. She’d used rougher ropes and he’s out of practice; the left one’s bitten deep enough to be raw, partly because he’d struggled against bonds when the crop had hurt. She touches that one, presses down—he hisses, pain and shocked ecstasy singing through his veins—and then sighs. “You need this, don’t you, baby? But not with me.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian says, on his knees between her legs, tears unexpectedly stinging his eyes. “I’m not…I can find you someone else…I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m so sorry.”  
  
“Are you kidding?” She laughs briefly, not mocking him, and tilts his chin up, brushing a fingertip over tear-tracks, swiping clear wetness across his cheek. “I don’t want someone else. I want you to be okay, baby, I’m worried. What’s wrong?”  
  
“I…” His voice cracks. Horrified, he swallows, shuts his eyes, grabs for submissive poise and grace. He ends up leaning against her leg, a clumsy midway point between proper posture and need for support. She just pets his hair some more. “It honestly isn’t you. It’s not even this. I do need to…I feel like I’m falling apart. I’m trying to do the right thing, and I keep fucking up, and I’m so tired, and I love him.”  
  
And then he puts a hand over his own mouth, because he’s said that out loud. Emotions running high and near the surface, drawn up by the crack of leather and the relief of subservience; and he’s said he loves Chris Evans, kneeling on a blood-red carpet and wearing a gold mesh cock cage, and he knows it’s true.  
  
“ _That’s_ new.” Margarita sounds entertained. “The rest, sweetheart, I’ve told you you’re wrong about that before, you always do the right thing for everybody else, but the love part? Who is this guy?”  
  
Sebastian exhales. Deeply. Tips his head into her hand. “A client.”  
  
“Ohhh boy,” Margarita says. “Okay, now you have to tell me this story, Seb. As your friend. As your Domme for the night. Whichever gets me the juicy details.”  
  
Sebastian summons up the energy to make a rude gesture at her. He’s abruptly exhausted, on the brink of a bad crash from the interrupted scene, trying not to think that he’s just let her down too, not being what she requested this evening…not being good enough for Chris…not being enough for anyone, and maybe he’s not even real, and he’s starting to feel distant, dissociated, not present in his body, the body that aches faintly from far-off stripes…  
  
“Sebastian.” His friend’s voice snaps through the haze. “No. I know you, and I know you’re not okay, okay? So. Orders. I want you to look at me. I want you to do a couple things, so you can do something for me, because you can, because you _are_ good at listening to orders, got it?”  
  
“Yeah,” he manages, and she slaps him: lightly, but enough to smart, to be an anchor. “Is that how you answer me, sub?”  
  
“Sorry,” Sebastian says, panting, dizzy but grounded again, “I mean, sorry, Mistress. Ow, fuck, that hurt.”  
  
“Sorry.” She pats his arm, a bit patronizingly but fair enough under the circumstances. “You looked like you needed it. Still need orders?”  
  
“Um…yes. Please.”  
  
“Works for me. Go make us drinks, and find nail polish if you have any, and come get in bed with me. Does this tv have Netflix?”  
  
Which is how Sebastian ends up sitting naked at Margarita’s feet, carefully painting her toenails a vivid shade of royal purple with silver flashes, occasionally being favored with sips of rum punch while sappy romantic comedies play themselves out in the depths of night. He’s not thinking much, only focusing. Task at hand. As it were.  
  
He does feel better. He’s been given orders, and he’s carrying them out, and she’s happy with him.   
  
So he can be a bit of a brat. Himself, again. “Are we watching _Notting Hill_? Really?”  
  
“I’m in charge, so yes.” She pokes his shoulder. “You love romantic comedies, anyway. Ooh, pretty, you’re doing such a good job, sweetheart.”  
  
Sebastian flushes at the praise; is beyond embarrassment at how readily this works. Skillfully adds more silver to the current toe, where it’ll catch light and glimmer. “Thanks.”  
  
“So tell me about your guy. No names if you want. Does he know how you feel? Do I have to give him a stern talking-to?”  
  
“He…knows I’m interested. He’s interested too. I think. It’s complicated.”  
  
“Because you do this?” She waves a hand at the room and by implication his life. Scarlet pillows quirk tassels at them in indignation. “If he’s a client he can’t exactly judge you, can he?”  
  
“He’s famous.”  
  
“Okay, a little trickier, but it’s not like you’re not respectable. Pretty sure I heard Matt Damon name-drop you in an interview last month.”  
  
“Matt’s a nice guy who wanted a friend to hang out with while Ben was gone. And…no, he knows what I do, he’s not…he doesn’t think less of me for it…” He bites a lip. Looks down, losing the staring contest with the closest pillow. The bed’s plush and purposefully erotic, built for one aim that isn’t sleep. His ass and thighs throb, not badly; his wrists’re going to have marks for a while.  
  
He had texted Chris, finally, that morning. Had said _I need to talk to you_ , and had gotten an instant breathless phone call and an anxious Boston accent in his ear: are you all right, are we all right, want me to come over, what’s wrong, what can I do?  
  
Chris had gone silent once Sebastian’d told him. Reminded him, really: they’d both known. Just forgotten. Pushed aside.  
  
Chris had said eventually, “Will you be okay?” A clearly carefully neutral tone. No indication of anger or displeasure. “I know you don’t do this anymore. You told me—I mean, I’m not tryin’ to be all, you said you weren’t sleeping with clients, why would you, all that…I get why, I really do, you said she’s a friend and this was kind of a scheduling emergency, it’s not like you run around fucking your clients…” He’d stopped. Unspoken words had crackled in the air, echoing down the mobile connection. I’m your client. You kissed me.   
  
“But you said you haven’t, um, y’know, in a long time,” Chris had finished hastily. “And the shit you went through with that last guy, the one who hurt you—”  
  
“Completely fine! Not even bruises anymore!”  
  
“—I just want you to not get hurt.” Chris’s voice had sounded small. Defeated. “I know I can’t ask you to promise that.”  
  
“I promise,” Sebastian had whispered, clinging to floating driftwood amid the wreck. “I can promise, I swear, it’s not like that—that guy, I know Margarita, she won’t hurt me, I’ll be done by midnight and I can call you after—”  
  
“Would you?” Trying equally hard. Treading water. “I’d like that. If you would.”  
  
“I promise,” Sebastian had pleaded, standing in his office, looking out the window without seeing anything of the world beyond. “I’ll call you.”  
  
In the here and now, _Notting Hill_ finishes with passionate avowals of love. Margarita puts on _Sleepless in Seattle_. “So he doesn’t think less of you for running an escort agency, and he’s famous but that’s not as much of an issue as you’re turning it into, so what else? Is it the kinky sex? Is he not into the kinky sex? Not the type who can grab a paddle and spank you until you’re so far into subspace you can’t remember your own name?”  
  
“He…I don’t know, honestly.” He licks his lips, realizes he’s doing it, stops. “He’s never done any of this before. But the way he talks to me, the way I react…it works. I think he’d try. Oh—sorry, nail polish…”  
  
“You can clean it up later. You love him, you said.”  
  
“He makes me laugh,” Sebastian says, almost to himself; “he makes me smile,” and his chest hurts and glows and shimmers all at once.  
  
Margarita gazes at him for a moment under flickering television lights; says finally, “Hope he knows he’s a lucky guy,” and gives him another sip of rum punch, and later cuddles with him under a blanket, rubbing his back while happy endings play out in Hollywood style.  
  
She checks to make sure he’s all right before she leaves. Professional, competent, a good Domme and a good friend. Sebastian, who is in reality ninety percent all right, kisses her good-night well enough to distract from that last ten percent, and goes upstairs shivering, hugging himself against night-chill from the doorway.  
  
In his apartment, he kicks off clothing and slides into his bathtub, letting mint and eucalyptus and steaming water coax tension from his body. He grabs tea and chocolate and a handful of mixed nuts and dried fruit for energy, and stays in the tub for long enough for toes to wrinkle, warming up gradually inside and out. He looks over at his phone where it’s waiting patiently.  
  
He knows he’s wobbly, not a full-blown crash but a precipitous drop, post-scene. He’s warm and cared-for and feeding himself, and he salvaged the night; Margarita’s pleased with him, and told him so, making certain he heard and internalized the words. She’d also bandaged his wrist; he strips that off now, wincing, but when he checks it’s not so bad. He’ll heal.  
  
He’s nevertheless cold and distressed, missing an anchor, knocked awry by currents of submission and endorphins and aftermath. Rudderless.  
  
He hops out of his tub, towels off, puts lotion and salve on various places, and texts Anthony to check in: doing his job, doing the job he used to do. Being back on this end of the relationship’s odd; not unpleasant, but unnerving, as if he’s walked into a room in a dream and realized he’s not where he’s supposed to be. Tinged with unreality and shadows.  
  
Anthony texts back _u ok Sea Bass??_ He’s home early; they’d set midnight as the ending time, and it’s barely eleven-thirty.  
  
_Fine_ , he answers. Ritual and response: calming.  
  
He wants to make one other phone call. He did promise. The promise stirs under his skin, restless.  
  
This first. This way he can be more steady, more tranquil, for Chris.  
  
_Anything I should know?_  
  
_Nothing I can’t tell you in the morning. I’ll see you then._  
  
_Need me to come up?_  
  
_I’ve been doing this for fun since before you ever met me. Think I got it, Mom._  
  
_Gonna regret that when I show up in your apron tomorrow, kid._  
  
_Pink polka-dot one? It’ll look great with your legs,_ Sebastian sends, _borrow it any time,_ and gets back a poop emoji, so he figures they’re done, and he’s even smiling, he discovers. Normality. And hot tea, and welcoming walls under candle-gleam.   
  
In the wake of this regained stability, he makes a call. Feet sock-clad and tucked up under himself in the plushness of his bed, old Rutgers hoodie cuddling his arms, he listens to Chris’s affection and concern and hope as they answer the phone.  
  
“Seb? Everything go okay? I mean—um, I don’t know what to ask, shit, are you—are you done for the night?”  
  
No censure. No disapproval. Only welcome like the first-ever glimpse of sunrise over horizonless waters. He says, sipping tea, nerves settling into a pattern they’ve never and always known deep down, “I’m home.”  
  
“And…you…you sound…okay?”  
  
“I’m a little sore.” He touches his wrist, knowing Chris can’t see. His words come out someplace between wistfulness and flirtation: wholly honest. “I’ve felt worse. She likes riding crops.”  
  
“Jesus.” Chris must be leaning in, closer to the phone. “Want me to come over? Anything I can do?”  
  
“You don’t need to…I hope I did enough. For her. I couldn’t quite—it ended up being more of a service sub appointment. Less sexual, though of course it always is, but…I hope she was satisfied enough.”  
  
“With you? Of course she was.” Chris’s voice carries confidence like bedrock: carved in history, indelible. “Don’t see how anyone couldn’t be.”  
  
“It’s possible, trust me. I’m far from perfect.”  
  
“Nobody’s perfect.” Chris hesitates before continuing, and his words’re exactly what Sebastian’s heart needs, a balm over that last rough scrape, a slow molten heat like candlewax flowing onto tingling skin. “But I know you, or I kinda hope I do, by now. And you take care of people. That’s who you are. You don’t have to be perfect, but I _know_ you wouldn’t leave a client unsatisfied. You’re too good for that—you _are_ good. For everyone. You’re so good, and you give so much, and you do so well, whatever we all ask from you, you can do it. Whatever I ask you. You do that. You’re good for me.”  
  
“ _Oh_ ,” Sebastian says, a ragged gasp; and then he’s crying, stunned and liquid and shaken loose and caught simultaneously, a kind of subspace he’s never felt before. Loss of control, already tumultuous emotions at Chris’s mercy; but sheer euphoric contentment under that: Chris’s words have drawn this out of him, Chris thinks he’s good, Chris told him…  
  
“Sebastian?” Chris says, and then, “Shhh, oh, no, don’t—wait, is that bad, the crying, or is it—”  
  
“It’s good!”  
  
“Oh thank god. Fuck, I wish I was there, I’d hold you…”  
  
“I’d…like that…no, I’m okay. Fuzzy. Sort of…like sugar. Cotton candy. Clouds. Thank you, sir.”  
  
Chris goes absolutely one hundred percent silent. Shocked.  
  
“Oh god,” Sebastian says, as his words catch up to his bliss-clouded brain.  
  
“Oh my god.”  
  
“I’m so sorry.”  
  
“No, um…” Chris audibly sits up straighter, gulps, stiffens resolve. “What you said, earlier? It’s good? Yeah. Okay. You need this right now? Being taken care of?”  
  
I need this always. I need you always. I need you on top of me, inside me, making me forget I’ve ever had anyone else’s marks on my skin. He swipes a few stray last tears away, flicks crystal drops into compassionate night. “Apparently I do. You’re very good at this. What you were saying…that worked.”  
  
“It did?”  
  
“ _Yes_ , Chris. Would you like it in other languages? I’m thinking about trying Gaelic.”

“Are you in bed?”  
  
“What?”  
  
Chris’s voice drops. Darker. Dominant. Firm. “Are you in bed, Sebastian?”  
  
“Ah…yes?”  
  
“Are you warm enough?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Are you hurting? Anywhere?”  
  
“Physically, or otherwise?” And then he wants to bite his tongue in half. The latter is a problem Chris can’t fix. His own heart, which has gone and tumbled headfirst into love.  
  
“Physically first,” Chris decides, after a pause. “How bad?”  
  
“Oh…not very. Rope burns. A few bruises. I took a bath, after. I’m mostly tired.” And floating a little on the surrender of control, the giving of himself in response to Chris’s questions. “Nothing strenuous.”  
  
“Emotionally,” Chris says, tone wobbling the tiniest bit.   
  
Sebastian whispers, “Lonely,” word coming out unbidden, small and true.  
  
“Oh, no,” Chris breathes, “no, Seb—I’m here. I’m right here. I’m here because I want to be. With you. Taking care of you. Does that help? Is that—something?”  
  
“It does. More than you know.” He pulls blankets up closer, tries for humor: “Between you and tea I’m warming up. Inside.”  
  
“Glad you’ve got…tea.”  
  
“And you, I said.”  
  
“You’ve always got me. You said you were tired? Should you sleep? I don’t know enough about…aftercare? Is that right? Subdrop?”  
  
“You’re helping.” He sets the mug on his nightstand, nestles down into fluff: both bed and the voice on the line. “I’m out of tea. And yes—it won’t be bad, she took care of me first, and now you’re here. It’s just been a while, and I’m not used to this anymore. I can fall asleep and not crash, if that’s what you’re asking; I won’t wake up disoriented or any of that. I had food and I—”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Feel less empty. With you talking.” He stifles a yawn. Emotions collapsing in on themselves, turning to blankness. “You said I was good. For you.”  
  
“Because you are. You amaze me, y’know? So competent, funny, gorgeous…and just now you called me sir.”  
  
“You said you liked it.” He yawns again. Chris sounds like security, like a hand at the nape of his neck, stroking his hair. “I liked you holding me. Would you do that again?”  
  
“I would.” Chris’s voice resonates through every fiber of his being: certain and unshakable, loyal as New England granite. “I’d hold you, give you a backrub, keep you warm…take care of whatever bruises…make them go away if I could, or kiss you until you forgot about anyone else, just being with me…”  
  
“Yours,” Sebastian whispers.  
  
“Mine.” Chris sounds awed but sure: as if this is his puzzle-piece snapping into place too. “Yeah, of course you are. My good boy, and I’ll take care of you. As long as you want.”  
  
“I want you. I’m going to fall asleep, though…”  
  
“Go ahead,” Chris permits softly, “if you’re sure you’re feeling okay. Want me to sing to you?”  
  
“You want to sing me to sleep?”  
  
“Yeah, I do. You arguing?”  
  
“No, sir.”  
  
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow, and I don’t want you to worry about anything else right now, okay?”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian agrees peacefully. He’s aware that he’s drifting: the lightest stage of subspace, hazy and edged around with rainbows, and this is something he shouldn’t be allowing himself with Chris, who is shortly going to finish filming and leave New York for the foreseeable future.  
  
But he’s so tired, and he loves Chris, and Chris wants to take care of him, and this feels good.  
  
He can let himself feel good. For now, for right now.  
  
Chris is singing quietly, an old song, classic rock. “I’ve seen fire, and I’ve seen rain…I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend…but I always thought I’d see you, baby, again…”  
  
“You will,” Sebastian protests drowsily. “Tomorrow.” And Chris laughs, a brief broken sound that Sebastian doesn’t quite understand, and switches songs: “I needed the shelter of someone’s arms, there you were…needed someone to understand my ups and downs, there you were…so I just want to stop, and thank you, baby…”  
  
How sweet it is to be loved by you, Sebastian thinks: the title of the song, the sensation like glorious arrows in his chest, the knowledge that no one’s said the word aloud; but he holds that sharp golden brightness inside, his own love a private flame, as Chris Evans sings him a love song and he fades into sleep.  
  
In the morning, he in fact _over_ sleeps—technically it’s not; he doesn’t have to be in early the day after an assignment and Anthony promised to be there—and wakes up at ten am, lying sprawled across his bed in a sunbeam from the crack at the side of his window. He’s warm but not overly warm; he feels safe, awakening, as if he’s had pleasant dreams he can’t remember. His body aches, but it’s less like subdrop and more like tiredness after a fulfilling workout, accomplished, well-earned.  
  
He picks up his phone and finds a text from Chris Evans: _hope you’re having a good morning!_ Followed by a snapshot of Central Park at sunrise, a megaphone edging into the shot, actors jogging in the distance.  
  
Chris sends good-morning messages that sound like a greeting-card designer’s favorite dream. Sebastian smiles, touches the screen, answers _I am, thank you._  
  
_Thanks!_  
  
_For what?_  
  
_Everything?_ A heartbeat later: _Did you have breakfast? Are you warm enough?_  
  
Sebastian, laughing, light skittering along bones and veins and every inhale, sends back a photo of coffee and a toasted muffin spread with strawberry jam. _I’ll see you at lunch._  
  
_Three hours = too long. Stay warm! Rest!_  
  
_Yes, sir._  
  
_I know that’s sarcastic, Sebastian. I can hear it._  
  
_Magical hearing you have, sir._  
  
_We’re gonna talk about this later. Got to finish this scene, we’re about done, think we can wrap up here by Thursday night. Need to focus right now though._  
  
_Don’t let me distract you._  
  
_Good distraction,_ Chris sends, but is clearly busy, so Sebastian doesn’t answer, only tosses his phone up, catches it pensively, and glances at the clock and scrambles into clothes, wincing only slightly as welts and weary muscles protest. He makes it into his office by eleven, calls Jeremy to say he’s here if needed, and opens up his laptop.  
  
Anthony Mackie, for once doing the rest of his job and not attached to Robert Downey Jr in some publicly-flaunted fashion, appears in his office two minutes after that. “Morning.”  
  
“Nice to see you. Come sign this expense report after I print it out. Don’t say anything, I told Jeremy to use the agency account, I’ll pay for it.”  
  
“Why’re you sitting down?”  
  
“Because it’s a chair,” Sebastian explains slowly, in case Anthony’s brain’s been dissolved by Robert’s attentions. “Chairs are made for sitting in. I know that’s a difficult concept. You’ll get it eventually.”  
  
“Isn’t your ass sore?”  
  
“Are we doing this? We don’t have to do this.”  
  
“Up.”  
  
Sebastian gets up, comes out from behind the desk, doesn’t move to display any marks of the night. “This is ridiculous. I do this for other people; I can totally handle my own post-appointment evaluation.”  
  
Anthony crosses arms at him. “Strip.”  
  
“I keep telling you, you’re my best friend, and I’m not gonna sit on your lap, we’ve been down that road already.”  
  
“Sebastian.”  
  
“I know, I know.” Turning around so he won’t have to face that gaze—a partner’s following of policy, but a friend’s amusement, concern, scolding—he pulls his shirt off, wriggles out of clinging jeans. “See? Nothing too bad. I did tell you.”  
  
“Paddle?” Anthony comes closer, touches one welt critically. “Not just a paddle.”  
  
“Riding crop. Ow. Move your thumb. She has good aim; it’s all surface-level, stings a lot, nothing I need to worry about.”  
  
“Ow?”  
  
He tugs jeans back up, turns around, catches Anthony’s hand. “I’m fine.”  
  
“That one’s not.” His partner holds his hand, checks rope-marks and skinned spots on a wrist. “You put somethin’ on that?”  
  
“No, I ignored any semblance of self-care. Yes, of course, I’m good at this.”  
  
“Not my point.” Anthony unexpectedly steps forward, pulls him into a hug. “Come here, Vanilla Ice.”  
  
“Oh,” Sebastian says, face squished into a firm shoulder, hands rubbing his back, “yes, okay—no, I’m fine—sore, but she’s a friend, you know that, we know that. I’m okay, Anthony, I would tell you if I weren’t.”  
  
“Yeah,” Anthony says, curiously muffled, “you damn well _would_ ,” but lets go and steps back: holding onto his shoulders, scrutinizing him up and down. “How’d it go? Safe, sane, consensual, nothin’ you didn’t say yes to? I know there’s something.”  
  
Sebastian makes a face: admission, as much as he hates to say the words. “We’ll probably owe her a free one sometime. Not with me. I can’t—I did enough, I think, but I know it wasn’t what I could’ve done. Before.” And then he has to explain, while Anthony sits with him, while he puts his shirt back on and feels each syllable become a smoldering coal in his gut, a fresh burn-hole through fragile tissue-paper selfhood. “She left satisfied, but it’s not what she came to me for.”  
  
Anthony’s rubbing the back of his neck, kneading muscles; not really dominant but offering comfort. Sebastian appreciates the attempt. “Was it the thing with Evans? Or as simple as you bein’ out of the scene for a while? Or…what happened with—” He starts to name _that_ ex-client, stops: avoiding healed-over wounds, though it’s unnecessary. “Was that it? You know we understand.”  
  
“All three, but mostly me not getting out of my head.” He shrugs, flops down on the couch, drapes legs over Anthony’s lap. “Massage, please. Chris is…everything I want and can’t have. And I’m out of practice letting go. And I know not every client is going to be an apocalypse, I wasn’t scared at all, it’s only hard not to think about that. A little. I should’ve gotten past it; I would have, if everything else hadn’t…” He waves a hand; Anthony obligingly rubs his calf, gently enough to not disturb crop-weals. “With someone else, with more time, with a second try…no, I don’t know. I couldn’t stop thinking.”  
  
“Which is why you need it.” Anthony drums fingers over his knee, casual and airy as friendship. “Thinkin’ about Evans?”  
  
“Can I say no believably?”  
  
“Nope. You think it would’ve worked with him?”  
  
“It did,” Sebastian says involuntarily, and promptly goes white-hot at the impulsive revelation. “I mean—I don’t mean we slept together—we didn’t—fuck—we _didn’t_ fuck, _pula mea, rahat_ , pretend I don’t speak English—”  
  
“What’d you do?”  
  
“Nothing. Nothing much. Only…after, that day…after Don intervened and you all conspired to handle the situation without me…Chris was the one who held me.”  
  
Anthony’s eyebrows go up, but then he nods.  
  
“He told me I was good. He fed me chocolate.”  
  
“Guess I’ve been missin’ some things, not being here. You let him take you down? You said it worked.”  
  
“He doesn’t…he doesn’t have any experience. But he knew the right things to say. To do. How to touch me. I know you’ve been busy, it’s not something you needed to know. How’s Robert?”  
  
“Fabulous, and don’t change the subject. Do you care about him?”  
  
“Robert?”  
  
“Chris, brat. Do you love him?”  
  
Sebastian sits upright on his couch, taking legs out of Anthony’s lap; the comfort’s too much to bear all of a sudden. Sunshine splashes like tears over his floor, his toes; he doesn’t know whether they’re tears of relief or heartfelt encouragement or despair.   
  
His phone chimes. Ten to one. Lunch. With Chris.  
  
“Lunch,” Sebastian says, head and heart spinning, emotions unraveling and shoved back together like yarn in a drawer, “with Chris, and Pratt—” and escapes with a vow of gratitude to the clock for existing, and runs downstairs.   
  
Lunch with Chris. Chris; and his heart flutters behind his breastbone. Love, he thinks. Every romantic cliché he’s read about, tried to capture in short story and metaphor and late-night scribblings, every swooping giddy butterfly feeling, wide eyes and clumsy feet and forgotten words: completely true. More than he’d ever known.  
  
Chris doesn’t know, and can’t know. Chris wants him, cares for him, but surely wouldn’t make that leap with him. Too much. Too greedy on Sebastian’s own part; he should be grateful, content with what he has, with this much of Chris Evans’ affection. Chris has made him happy. Has given him back a safe space, a deep tranquil shimmering submissive space. Has bought him gifts and made him laugh. More than he could’ve ever dreamed, opening that client file.  
  
To remind him of reality, his toes miss the last step. He trips, windmills arms, catches balance and breath, clinging to the wall.  
  
His receptionist and a couple of their escorts, suspiciously coincidentally having nothing better to do than hang around and judge him, applaud.  
  
“Thank you,” Sebastian says, “I’m here all week, next time I’ll walk into an open refrigerator for your entertainment,” and takes a bow.  
  
Both Pauls laugh, look guilty for laughing, and ask whether he needs ice for any bruises. Sebastian’s momentarily bewildered—he hadn’t fallen over himself that badly—and belatedly figures out why they’re asking. “Does _everyone_ in this office gossip about my sex life?”  
  
“Nah,” Pratt says, appearing from the restroom, “we worry about who’s gonna sign our paychecks and bake us cupcakes when you take on clients and get hurt. With riding crops. Seriously, you okay, kid? Up for lunch with us?”  
  
_“Kid?”_ Sebastian echoes meaningfully, at which point the front door opens and Chris Evans arrives.  
  
Chris Evans comes in haloed by sunlight, shaking it off like scattered gold from dark hair and blue Henley and worn jeans. Chris Evans fills up their doorway like a classical statue, and blushes like a schoolboy when every single escort looks him up and down in unison. “Welcoming committee?”  
  
“Hmm,” one Paul says. “Cute when flustered.”  
  
“Have you seen his movies?” says the other Paul. “He’s a sweetheart.”  
  
“Too bad he’s taken.”  
  
“Even I would,” Jeremy concludes. “Look at those shoulders.”  
  
“Hey!” Sebastian shouts, mock-scolding, and they smirk but shut up. “Sorry, Chris, they’re a pack of uncivilized hyenas—”  
  
Chris’s attention goes right to him. Chris’s face drains of color.  
  
He’s forgotten his sleeves’re rolled up. His right hand darts that way instinctively, but stops: useless.   
  
The rope-burns around both wrists get hotter, after the fact: abashed by their own presence. Lingering welts elsewhere prickle with awareness.  
  
“Oh, no—” Chris stretches hands out for him. Dismayed. Eyes and lips parting, those remarked-upon shoulders tensing with apprehension. “Can I see?”  
  
“Yes, of course—” He’s stepping closer, not pausing to think, letting Chris’s body lean protectively into his. “I told you I bruise easily, I’m not hurt, I promise—”  
  
“That looks like it should hurt.” Chris’s hands cradle his left wrist tenderly, inspecting minor injuries with the expert attention of an outdoorsman who’s gotten his fair share of scrapes and nicks. “What else? Where’s your salve or lotion or whatever you put on this? Can I do that?”  
  
Melting, melting, turning to liquid syrup under Chris’s care; he’s nodding, head full of clouds and the tethering weight of caresses. “Yes, please—”  
  
“Oh, come on, you two,” Anthony grumbles from the bottom of the stairs, eye-roll unable to hide his beaming fondness. “Go upstairs or something, seriously, this’s worse than that soap opera role I almost got that time.”  
  
“I think they’re adorable,” Jeremy contributes, chin on hands behind his desk.  
  
“You owe me ten bucks,” Paul says to the other Paul, who wordlessly opens his wallet.  
  
“Go away,” Sebastian says dreamily. “ _I’ll_ give you ten bucks later if you do.”  
  
“I think I’m not required here,” Pratt says. “Hey, Evans, dinner instead? Off the clock, totally friends, I know there was somethin’ you wanted to ask me, I’ll bring you right back here so you can drag my boss away from babysitting us and pleasure him all night long.”  
  
“Sure,” Chris says over Sebastian’s head, which is now tucked against his shoulder, kept there by one proprietary hand. The hand’s petting his hair. Sebastian never wants to move again, which works out nicely because pools of molten sugar can’t move. “Only if he wants, though.”  
  
“I’m working tonight.” Sebastian blinks, gathers hold of himself, tries futilely to pretend he hasn’t just become a submissive puddle in front of his employees. “And I—I can’t…Anthony won’t be here and—”  
  
“So I’ll keep you company. Nothing sex-related. Promise. Can I buy you lunch right now?” Chris has evidently picked up on the tremble in his voice. He’s not surprised. Chris knows him. Chris knows his reservations and his need to not let anyone down and his wavering over this final step. Chris knows about anxiety and second-guessing and the entwined nature of hope and fear.  
  
He’s slept with other clients. He did so last night. He’s happy in Chris’s arms. But that’s exactly why he’s hesitating at the thought, even as it steals his breath away.  
  
He wants Chris more than he can remember ever wanting anyone.   
  
What if he’s not good enough? What if he breaks this last rule, gives himself to Chris, confesses his love—and what if that’s the end?  
  
I think we’re about done filming here, Chris had said. Heading out. Leaving New York. Thursday night, Friday morning.  
  
If he never says yes, never surrenders this last piece of himself, never breaks his last rule for Chris—will he hurt less when Chris leaves?  
  
He doesn’t know the answer. Stumbles over, “Lunch, for now?” and tips his head up for a kiss. He means the gesture, revels in the decisiveness with which it’s returned; Chris smiles while being kissed, reassured. The beard’s delicious, nuzzling his face.  
  
“Yeah.” Fingers twine together, after. As they drift out of the office, down the street, under honeyed sun.   
  
Light falls like a blanket over his shoulders, like a carpet across city pavement; walking on light, he decides. With Chris’s hand in his, and at the small of his back as they enter a restaurant, where he’s not even noticed the name but Irish whiskey floats in the air. Peat and smoke and caramel and heat: an old-fashioned pub. Chris’s voice murmurs low in his ear. “You said you like history, historical romance, and some of my crew found this place, the owners brought the whole pub over from Dublin, it’s kind of awesome…”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian breathes, gazing around: heavy story-saturated spaces, built of wood and history, rich and solid. Chris’s arm around his shoulders, the way they both should be. “I like it. How old is it?”  
  
“Eighteenth century?” Chris gets them a table, orders whiskey—fine and gold and burning like scorched rain—and asks what he wants for food. Sebastian opens his mouth, dizzied by luxury and the nearness of that authoritative kindness, and abruptly can’t think.  
  
Chris has put a foot atop his, under the table, pinning his to the floor.  
  
He realizes his mouth’s remained open. Closes it hurriedly.  
  
Chris grins. “Something wrong?”  
  
“No! No…I…is this how movie directors eat? Whiskey at lunch?”  
  
“Sometimes at breakfast if the night’s been fuckin’ awful.” Teasing right back, undercurrent of honesty serving to highlight the happiness: “Or if it’s been fuckin’ great and we’re celebrating. Are we?”  
  
“Celebrating?” Sebastian turns his own hand over, looking at his wrist: rawness invisible under rolled-down sleeves. Chris looks as well, which was the point; he reaches out, takes Chris’s hand, sets it atop the marks. Chris stops breathing. “Yes. I think…there’s a lot I need to figure out. But this…I like this. The way I feel with you. So, yes, that deserves celebration.” He leans in, gazes up through eyelashes. “And I like being celebrated. If you were so inclined.”  
  
Chris laughs.   
  
“I like decadent,” Sebastian adds helpfully. “Dessert for lunch, for instance. And presents of books.”  
  
“Makin’ suggestions, kid?” Chris’s fingers tap over his wrist; Sebastian licks his lips and keeps up the provocative faux-innocent submissive challenge. Chris says, “Actually I like you making suggestions, I like knowing what you like, means I can decide what you get to have if I feel like rewarding you, spoiling you, taking care of you,” and Sebastian shivers head to toe with desire.  
  
Chris draws small circles across his wrist with artist’s fingers, and says, “I’ll take you back to your office after this, I won’t distract you from your job, you said just lunch for now and I heard you, we’re gonna be good, I’m gonna take good care of you for as long as you’ll let me,” and orders whiskey-soaked chocolate cake and cinnamon-cream bread pudding, while Sebastian’s heart breaks and mends itself over and over across every sweet-spiced bite, every reminder of _for now_ , every intoxicating forkful Chris holds to his lips as if that’s ordinary: as if they can have this for every now, without the inevitable end.


	10. wednesday night, finally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Chris comes home with Sebastian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for slight delay! Summer Death Cold attacked me.
> 
> One chapter to go...

The instant Sebastian heads back to the office, a problem pounces onto his shoulders.  
  
“What do you mean you need to reschedule?”  
  
“I mean I need Friday off,” Anthony explains, limpid-eyed, “so Robert can take me to an oyster bar. I’ll swap you for tonight.”  
  
“Do you even know our schedule for tonight? You need to check in with at least five—”  
  
“I know, I got it.” Anthony waves a hand. “Go let Evans pet your hair.”  
  
Chris had walked him back, kissed him too briefly—possessive but lighthanded, not drawing too much attention, blushing like springtime sunrise—and had gone off to talk to an editor about footage and wrapping up. Sebastian glares. “He’s busy. You can’t just fuck with our schedule any time you need a day off.”  
  
“Won’t happen again.” With held-up hands, avowal: “He’s only in town one more week. Then Malibu. I swear, Seb. I’ll be here more.”  
  
“Are you at least having fun,” Sebastian grumbles, “I hope you are, because I’m going to haul your ass to the gym with me and use you as a Krav Maga punching bag. Fine. Anything else?”  
  
“Do you even use punching bags for that?”  
  
“If not I’ll do it anyway. So I’m off tonight?” He has no clue what he’s going to do with himself. Chris has work to finish up and dinner plans with Pratt, to which Sebastian himself’s not invited; the thought rakes uncomfortable envious nails down his spine. Chris wants him, he reminds those nails. Just because Chris also wants to ask his escort…something…some sort of question…that doesn’t mean Sebastian’s not good enough…that doesn’t mean Chris _can’t_ ask him anything…  
  
What if Chris can’t ask him anything?  
  
What if Chris _isn’t_ comfortable with him? With him, in this role, living up to Sebastian’s shameless pathetic fantasy demands?  
  
He should probably go straight home and stop thinking. Tea, kitten videos on YouTube, and books about astronauts. Resolution: no sneaking a hand into sweatpants. Decidedly not while imagining Chris Evans as a square-shouldered heroic astronaut, and himself as a space prince in need of a hasty marriage.  
  
“…I’ll hang around until five or six and get you up to speed on everything for tonight.” And maybe see Chris arrive to pick up Pratt for dinner at six-thirty, according to the message Jeremy’s passed on. Masochistic tendencies: check.  
  
He touches his wrist again. This hurts, in a way that distracts him from other aches, less physical and more confusing.  
  
“Sounds good,” Anthony agrees, wandering back to his own office, apparently noticing nothing wrong. “Send me any updates, Wonder Thighs.”  
  
“Still not going to sit on your lap!” Sebastian yells back, though his partner’s already down the hall.  
  
That’s catastrophe one. He thinks it’s handled, though, or handled well enough. Annoying; not unsolvable. He kicks a foot into his desk in irritation, then delivers an apologetic pat. Antique wood shrugs the impact off; it knows his moods.  
  
He types up his own notes from Margarita’s appointment. He takes a couple of calls. He sends Anthony a brief email detailing the night’s clients, escorts on assignment, and all respective preferences. Anthony sends back an email that says “Too much detail did not read.” Sebastian gets up, sticks his head out the door, and shouts, “Read the damn summary section!”  
  
Two minutes later he gets another email in which Anthony points out that he was kidding, right, and he was reading through the whole thing now, and yes he knows about that client and the potato fixation, thanks, and maybe Sebastian should reconsider this whole being at work the day after a submissive scene idea.  
  
Sebastian refuses to answer this one. Not sulking. Just not answering. Being Adult.  
  
Four o’clock rolls around. Five.  
  
Five-fifteen; and a vastly distressed Pratt flies into his office, hands everywhere, hair standing up distractedly. “Seb—oh Seb thank god you’re still here, okay, have dinner with Chris for me.”  
  
“What? Why? Here, sit down—” He nudges his escort onto the sofa, grabs good whiskey, pours. “Drink this. What happened?”  
  
“My mom…” Pratt looks at his empty glass with distant surprise. Remembers words. “My mom’s in the hospital. I have to go.”  
  
“Of course you do.” Sebastian takes the glass, refills it—small pours, for steadying nerves—and knocks one back himself, processing that initial request and wording plus his escort’s agitated flailing that’ll need a rational hand. “What do you need? Just tell me.”  
  
“It’s not too serious.” Pratt heaves out a shuddering breath, comes back down from panic: “She fell down, broke a hip—a neighbor found her, I guess she was swearing at the kitchen counter for tripping her, that’s my mom—but I want to be there…”  
  
“As you should be. I’ll book your flight; I assume you want to head out tonight?” He lunges, successfully snags his laptop without removing the comforting arm around his escort’s shoulders. “As early as nine-thirty? First class? You can come back whenever you want; don’t worry about the expense. We’ll cover everything.”  
  
“Are you sure?” Pratt gulps, glances into the whiskey glass, looks back up. “That’s a lot…”  
  
“Not even. My people, remember? You said you’d take care of me if I needed it; I’m taking care of you. We’ll manage your appointments until you’re back.”  
  
“You won’t…” A pause, one hand running wordlessly through hair. “Seb. Don’t. Not you. I can’t—I can’t ask you to—” Awkward, stumbling over one family member already injured: “Don’t get hurt because of me.”  
  
“I won’t—”  
  
_“Please.”_  
  
“I won’t,” Sebastian says again, gently taking the empty glass and setting it on his desk. “I promise. Are you all right getting home? Want me to call you a cab?”  
  
“Um…”  
  
“I’ll do that, then, and you can start thinking about what to pack. I like scarves. They go with any outfit. Don’t worry about a thing, seriously, call me if you need anything at all, and keep us up to date on how she’s doing.”  
  
“—oh god,” Pratt says weakly. “Thank you. This—I can’t—thank you. God.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it, I said,” Sebastian admonishes, walking him to the waiting cab; coming back in, he meets Anthony’s worried gaze. “He’s fine. It’s his mother, obviously he has to go.”  
  
“I heard. You gonna call Evans?”  
  
Sebastian says a word for which his own much-adored mother would’ve scolded him for fifteen minutes in angry Romanian, and sits right down on the bottom stair-step. “I’m…yes. Someone should.”  
  
“Let me rephrase. You gonna have dinner with Evans?”  
  
“I don’t know.” He puts his head in his hands for a second. Thoughts whirling. A dozen directions. “Someone find out which hospital and send flowers if she likes them, or balloons or chocolate if she’d prefer either; she’s Pratt’s mother, so R-rated get-well balloons might be a possibility. And call everyone who’s not busy and explain; we’ll have to look over his schedule for the next couple weeks and reassign…I _don’t_ know. About Chris. What he’ll want.”  
  
Anthony, shoulder propped on the wall above him, knocks a sneaker into his boot. “I know what _you_ want. _You_ know what you want. Let yourself breathe.” Dark eyes, competent and compassionate, study his reaction.  
  
Sebastian aims a return kick at his friend’s ankle, which given respective positions requires impressive flexibility, not that Anthony comments. “I’ll call him.”  
  
“You mean that?”  
  
“Yes. You’re handling everything else. All the other arrangements.”  
  
“Works for me,” Anthony says, mildly enough to’ve been his plan all along; Sebastian scowls, sighs, hops to his feet. “Ow. I still have bruises, fuck, this is a bad idea.”  
  
“Wrong wrist? And no one says you have to get on your knees for the guy on a first date.”  
  
“I’ll follow your example with Robert, shall I? No, stop fussing, it’s fine.” He bats the reaching hand away. Retreats upstairs. “I’m calling Chris. In my office.”  
  
“ _Yeah_ you are. You go, kid.”  
  
“Solve our emergency!” Sebastian retorts, and closes his door: not precisely a slam, but not far off, either.  
  
He takes out his phone. His other phone. Work, and personal.  
  
He looks at them both.  
  
Dying sunlight spills from his window, over the world. Night coming on. New York City splendor: glitter over shadow. Alleyways and neon lights in harmony.  
  
He picks up his personal phone, and calls Chris Evans.  
  
Who answers startled, somewhat out of breath. “Sebastian? What’s up? Sorry, I was in the shower, I just got out of—not that I want you to get off the phone, of course not, but you’re working, I thought—did something happen?”  
  
Sebastian, smothered by this outpouring of words and care, says, “Ah…yes?” and hears his voice shake a fraction: having to explain to Chris, who just hopped out of a shower, getting ready for a dinner date.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Chris moves from flustered client to concerned Dominant in the space of a sentence; even without knowing precise circumstances he’s trying to be supportive, Sebastian thinks, and feels the desperate urge to curl into that strength and tuck his face into Chris’s neck. “What happened, Seb? Talk to me. Please.”  
  
“It’s not me! I’m not—not that you were asking, that you assumed—never mind.” He cringes at himself, revises, “Of course you didn’t assume that. Given that I’m the one who called you. It’s Pratt. It’s not serious—or not exactly—but he’ll have to cancel tonight.”  
  
“You might call me,” Chris says, voice tight, emotion not quite anger but akin to it, “if you were in trouble. If you were hurt. I’d want you to call me. You _can’t_ think I wasn’t terrified when you said something happened, you don’t think I didn’t think—” He stops. Exhales. “Okay. Fucking—okay. Pratt.”  
  
“Yes. I’m sorry. His mother’s in the hospital—not bad, a broken hip—but he’s understandably preoccupied. He should be on a plane home shortly.”  
  
“Is she okay? Should I—um, send flowers?”  
  
Sebastian’s heart flips. Love, love, love. “If you’d like. We will be; I can give you the delivery details. You don’t have to, but he considers you a friend, so he might appreciate the thought. And as far as I know it’s not serious, but, well. It’s his mother.”  
  
“Yeah, of course.” Chris exhales. “Man. I can’t even—I don’t know what I’d do if it were my mom. Poor guy. So…um…I guess you were calling to…cancel dinner?”  
  
Sebastian gazes out his window. City lights burn and sear and swirl until they become indistinguishable: brilliant weightless shapes devoid of solid reference-points. Let yourself breathe, Anthony’d said.  
  
“I might have an alternative. If that would be acceptable.”  
  
“An alternative…like…rescheduling? Or someone else? Never mind, I trust you, you’ve always been right, I’m totally in your hands. Someone I’ve met? If that’s even what you meant.”  
  
“Yes. Incontrovertibly.” He closes eyes, makes a wish upon glittering light-streaks, opens them. “Me.”  
  
Chris goes silent. An incredulous silence, but not, Sebastian thinks—hopes—displeased.  
  
“You…” Chris’s voice wobbles. “I thought you didn’t. You don’t. With clients.”  
  
“One night. Tonight. I don’t. But we don’t have anyone else on such short notice, and I don’t want you to think I wouldn’t—” Wouldn’t what? Fall head over clumsy heels for you, fall so deeply I might never surface again from this sweet-water ocean? “Wouldn’t take care of you. When you had plans with us.”  
  
“Oh…so…a business arrangement. One time.” Like last night, when you had a scheduling conflict and, yes, took a single old-friend client, mourns that tone.  
  
And it is mourning; Sebastian knows emotion. Chris doesn’t want this to be business. Not at all.  
  
And plainly not. Chris has come to them for friends. For connection. For Chris this’s all _about_ emotion. Not the emotion Sebastian would prefer, but obvious; and he swears at himself for not getting it sooner, for letting Chris down.  
  
So he tells the truth, an edited-down version at least. They both deserve that. “No. I mean, yes, of course, I wouldn’t if we didn’t need—when I said I only take clients in emergency situations these days, I _didn’t_ lie to you—but no. I want to. I want this. For me. One time.”  
  
“You want this,” Chris whispers, and then, as if he still can’t believe it, “…dinner?”  
  
Sebastian rather astoundingly wants to laugh, and settles for a breathless hiccup of desire. “Anything you want.”  
  
“No,” Chris says, awed and shaky and determined, “not anything _I_ want. We. Us. What we want. You said you do, you want—you can’t take that back. I’ll, um, make it an order if that helps?”  
  
This time Sebastian does laugh. “Come over.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“I’ll meet you in my office. We can keep the six-thirty time if you’re already planning on that. I’ll see what I can come up with.” He can’t resist flirtation: “I mean food, naturally.”  
  
He can _hear_ Chris raising eyebrows. “Naturally. Seb…seriously, for a sec…I want you to answer me honestly…how’re you? You’re okay enough for—after last night?”  
  
“Oh. Oh, Chris…” He rolls up his left sleeve again: messy and one-handed, showing rope-scrapes and healing. Chris’s voice is healing too. “I promise to tell you the truth. If I need to take a step back I will. But I don’t think I’ll have to. I’m not hurt, not in any way I didn’t consent to, and when I said I want you, I meant I liked this afternoon, and I want to…see where the evening goes. With you. Sir.”  
  
“Oh,” Chris echoes. “Yeah. Okay. Yes. Wow. Okay, yes. Thank you. I’ll—I’ll see you at. Um. Six-thirty?”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Sebastian agrees demurely, and hangs up to the sound of Chris spluttering inarticulate noises of obvious arousal.  
  
And then he looks at his wrist. And his outfit. And his office.  
  
And he swears in three languages, bolts out the door—pausing to yell to Anthony’s door that he’s leaving—and runs up to his apartment floor, where he’s going to make food and then dress up for Chris Evans.  
  
By six-fifteen, he’s ready. Back in the office. Poised. Pretending to be poised: his heart’s beating like a snare drum and he feels like a twelve-year-old with a first crush, schoolyard-fumbling and wrong-footed. Maybe he should’ve brought daisies.  
  
He eyes his efforts at food. Pizza spirals, tiny sausage rolls, herb-infused tiny dumplings, peach salsa bruschetta, miniature pancakes with strawberries. Chris likes pizza and had been amused by the hot-dog truck, once upon a time; Sebastian’s actually best with breakfast food, and had needed to cook fast. The mini pancakes smirk at him; one’s lopsided.  
  
“We can always go out for dinner,” he says to it threateningly; the pancake says nothing, so he eats it.  
  
He enjoys cooking. Occupation for his hands. For his thoughts.  
  
He turns, as the knock resonates from his door to his bones.  
  
Chris Evans looks spectacular. Heather-grey sweater, dark slacks, neatly combed beard, shy smile.  
  
Chris Evans takes a step in and freezes, lips literally parting, eyes raking up and down Sebastian’s body in a most satisfactory way.  
  
Sebastian grins. Stretches: not above showing off.  
  
He’s opted for classic but with a few surprises, because this is Chris. Grey suit, though he’s left the jacket flung over his chair. White button-down, sleeves casually rolled up. Dark blue tie ever so slightly askew.  
  
The suit-pants cling and caress. The white shirt’s so light it’s nearly transparent, though not quite—teasing with the idea. Rope-burns show at his wrists, another fading smudge visible at his throat: unblinking, unembarrassed, deliberately sexual. The loosened tie suggests options.  
  
“Hi,” he says, and licks his lips. Fizziness races through his veins like starshine drunk on champagne.  
  
“Oh my god,” Chris Evans says, staring.  
  
“We could go out,” Sebastian says, “but I did throw a few things together. If you were hungry. Want a drink?”  
  
“Oh god yes…you…you look…” That gaze follows him across the room. “Was that…for me? You changed…”  
  
“And what makes you think I didn’t simply spill pizza sauce on my shirt? Come have food.”  
  
Chris picks up a tiny dumpling, chubby with herbs and cheese, and pauses. “You feed people.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“You feed people when you’re trying to take care of them. Or when you’re nervous.”  
  
“Both,” Sebastian says lightly, and hands him a flawless old-fashioned: bourbon and orange and bitters and sugar-cube and cherry, classic and smoky-sweet. “Try that.”  
  
“Good.” Chris blinks, looks back at the glass. “ _Really_ good.”  
  
“Thank you.” He makes a martini for himself: blueberries and cream and icy vodka clearness like melted snow. Sharp and winter-bright and bracing.  
  
When he looks up Chris is beside him.  
  
Chris’s hands are warm. They take his chilly ones and infuse his soul with heat. “Hey. Got your laptop?”  
  
“Ah…yes?”  
  
“Can I show you a video about a Scottish Fold kitten who loves boxes?”  
  
“Oh,” Sebastian says, shivering from reprieve and muddled desire and the relief of being known, being seen through, being transparent for Chris, “yes.”  
  
Chris wraps fingers around his wrist, and settles down with him on his couch, while night falls soft as flower-petals outside. Kittens dive into boxes on the laptop screen. Chris’s hand strokes his bared forearm: slow, soothing, ceaseless. Petting, reassuring, an anchor and a torment: his skin prickles with heat. He wants to, oh god he wants to. He can think of reasons why he shouldn’t, but he can also think of reasons why he should, and if he’s only going to have one night with Chris—one night before Chris vanishes back to a movie-director life—then he’s going to stop saying no to his heart.  
  
He’s going to say yes.  
  
Here and now, carrying his own bruises and old scars, letting himself breathe, he’s going to say yes.  
  
Chris picks up one of the mini pancakes. Holds it to his lips. Purposeful evocation of their last time on this couch.  
  
Sebastian leans in. Nibbles from Chris’s fingers.  
  
Chris hums, a nebulous sound of approval, and strokes his arm again.  
  
Sebastian’s body lights up and softens and quivers with need, senses simultaneously getting incoherent around the edges yet hyperaware of each immediate touch, each caress.  
  
Chris feeds him for a while, not pushing. Keeping him safe, grounded, calm. Coaxing him into relaxation, and more: a liquid rainbow sort of feeling, being taken care of. After a while he realizes he’s leaning in under Chris’s arm, being cuddled, head on Chris’s chest. It’s nice there, protected.  
  
Chris kisses his forehead, more a nuzzle of beard than a proper peck of lips. “Better?”  
  
“Mmm,” Sebastian says hazily. “You’re warm. Was that…enough food, or should I…do you want…anything else?”  
  
Chris chuckles, though some pain dances evanescent through the sound. “I could stay right here and be happy, Seb. Whatever you want to give me. I’ll be happy with that.”  
  
“We,” Sebastian argues as best he can from within gold-tinted clouds. “You said we. Earlier. Not only me. Us.” To prove the point, he pokes at Chris’s chest, which rumbles with laughter. “I like making you laugh.”  
  
Chris’s hand captures his. Boston harbors glimmer with amusement. “How’re you feeling?”  
  
“Anchored,” Sebastian decides, looking at their hands. “I’m all right. I can come up if you want. Professional. See?” He even manages to pick up his martini with the other hand. “You’re good at this. With me. But I can—I can be whatever you need. What I do.”  
  
Chris releases his hand. “I know.”  
  
“Oh,” Sebastian says, abruptly lonely. “Oh…um…I didn’t mean…oh, hell. I’ll get us refills.” He does Chris’s first, without looking up. No one but the orange twists’ll see the easy tears in his eyes.  
  
“You’re my friend,” Chris says slowly.  
  
“Of course I am.”  
  
“I mean…you’re doing this…because you’re my friend. Because someone else canceled, and you’re trying to be whatever I need, and—” Chris stops, lets out a harsh-sounding breath. “I can’t. I can’t let you do that. For me.”  
  
“You—”  
  
“You’re hurt and I’m an asshole for even thinking—I can’t do this if you don’t want to. I _can’t_.” Chris’s voice cracks. Splintering timbers. “I want you. I might even—hell, I don’t know, I’ve never even been in love before, but I think—the way I can’t think straight around you, the way I can say _anything_ around you, the way I want to watch you smile about grilled cheese and fluffy cats, and then take you to bed and take care of you, ’cause I can’t watch you get hurt, it’s killing me—but I can’t do this if you’re just fucking _humoring_ me.”  
  
“But I’m not—”  
  
“You said you’d be honest. _Please_.”  
  
Sebastian takes a sip of his new martini, testing; sets it down. Turns; finds Chris watching him.  
  
The atmosphere heats and shivers around them. Light glints from glass. Sparkling anticipation.  
  
He says, simply, “I want you. I don’t know how to—how else to say that. I don’t know how to do this. You’re not just a client. You haven’t been since—I’m not sure you ever were. This is new for me too. But I want you. Please, Chris—I want you. Take care of me, sir.”  
  
And—as if it’s involuntary, as if drawn by the words—Chris puts a hand out. Rests it on the bar. Beside his. Close enough for heat to radiate, for skin to sing and flush, aware.  
  
Sebastian takes a breath, but before he can speak Chris does. Of course Chris does. Here in this enchanted dream, Chris would. “I don’t know if you—if you would—but _if_ you would—I’ve got a hotel room and—”  
  
Sebastian moves his own hand. Their fingers brush, tingle, come back and entwine. “Yes.”  
  
“…yes?”  
  
“Come home with me.” He can’t not say it. Has to. One night, tonight, and he has to. “My home.”  
  
Chris nods, gazing at him, wonder-struck.  
  
He brings Chris upstairs. His home, where he’s never brought anyone else. His key turning in the lock, his door opened up for Chris Evans to step inside. Chris looks around wide-eyed, with the reverence of a man in a cathedral who knows himself to be unworthy; Sebastian’s collection of much-used pans, drying in a rack near the sink, know better, knowing their owner, and beg to differ.  
  
Chris drifts toward bookshelves, toward big floor-to-ceiling windows and swooping views. Stops to throw him a smile: bright as a boy let into a secret. “This is you. Where you live.”  
  
Sebastian, smiling back, putting leftover strawberries into his fridge, closing the door, answers, “Yes.”  
  
Chris comes back over, unhurried but with that same sense of imminence: a dream come to life here in Sebastian’s home. Takes his hands; gathers them into one large one, and lifts the other. Runs it over Sebastian’s hair, taming wayward strands. Nestles closer, cupping his cheek, tenderness exquisite and possessive and magnificent.  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian says helplessly, “yes, please, please.”  
  
“Good,” Chris tells him, low and delicious, “so good, saying yes to me, _my_ Sebastian,” and the world vanishes in a blaze of light.

He’s aware of bits and pieces after that. Ripples of sensation. Chris’s hand at the nape of his neck. Chris kissing him, mouth hot and fierce and conquering; Sebastian moans into the kiss, joyous surrender. Chris draws back, laughs, asks where his bedroom is; Sebastian, wordless, grabs his hand. They run.  
  
Chris strips him with painstaking care. Those big hands’re kind, laughing with delight at navy silken underthings that match his tie, and avoiding the worst bruises without comment. Chris braces him with hands on hips and looks searchingly into his eyes, and Sebastian dives in and tries to wrap arms around his Dominant’s neck. He’s uncoordinated and drunk on desire, suffused by submission; he manages to cling to Chris and to get out, “I want you—”  
  
Chris kisses his nose. “I know. God, you’re gorgeous. So how does this work? Do I give you orders?”  
  
“You can…or just touch me, pet me, please…I like being talked to…I like being yours.”  
  
“Mine, huh?” Chris takes his chin in hand, lifts it. “You want to show me how much you like being mine? Would you get on your knees for me?”  
  
He feels his eyes light up, feels himself nodding enthusiastically; he slides to the floor with ungraceful swiftness. Chris is naked too—when had that happened? He’s breathtaking, powerful body inked with dark swirls of tattoo-art—and Chris’s legs are long and strong and masculine, lightly fuzzy with hair, and Sebastian loves that. Chris’s cock’s long and thick and glorious, stiff and tantalizingly liquid at the slit, and he loves that too, mouth yearning to be filled with it.  
  
“Go on.” Chris’s hand’s gentle on his head. “Show me. I want to see you.”  
  
Given permission—wonderful, wonderful permission, that hand on his head and that cock bobbing at his lips—he does.  
  
He’s skilled at this too, and proud of it; he can take cocks as big as Chris’s without flinching, and Chris groans when he slides all the way down. He looks up, lips wrapped around the shaft; Chris groans again, hand tightening in his hair. “Fuck yeah—so good, you’re so—oh, wow—go on, more—”  
  
Orders verbal and physical, and they roll up and crash over him like waves, plunging him into oceans of clear blue where he’s floating amid currents; the only anchor’s the cock in his mouth, his own eager suckling, the caresses of that hand on his head, that voice…  
  
Chris fucks his mouth harder, thrusting. Sebastian chokes at a particularly hard shove, whimpers, begs for more when Chris would’ve pulled back. Chris grins. “You like that.” Not a question. “You do like that, choking on my cock, letting me use that mouth…mine, you said. Being good. For me.”  
  
Sebastian moans frantically. His body’s quivering, sensation diffuse and relentless, unending oscillations of bliss. And Chris slips the other hand down, under his jaw, around his throat, holding him in place: not cutting off air, not yet, but enough to register through euphoria. Chris’s hands control his movements. His breath.  
  
He shudders, goes nearly limp, head lolling into those hands. He lets himself be held up by Chris, who takes his mouth, his throat. He feels as though he’s coming, over and over; he’s gone blank with pleasure. His cock, untouched, rubs against his stomach; even that makes him twitch with impossible sensitivity.  
  
Chris stops, panting. Sebastian whines, on his knees, mouth wet, chest going up and down as he pants for air. Chris’s cock rubs across his lips, his cheek, his nose. He trembles.  
  
“I want to fuck you,” Chris whispers. “Here. In your bed. Is that okay?”  
  
He nods, flying among kaleidoscope clouds.  
  
Chris scoops him off the floor. Sets him down in the middle of his sheets: authoritative but with concern, as if he’s made of pure and fragile glass, a rare sculpture that might never exist again. “What do you like? In bed. Tell me.”  
  
“I…I like…would you tie me up? Wrists…” He flexes them to demonstrate. “I like…being free to move. When I’m yours. That didn’t make any sense, did it, sir, I’m sorry…”  
  
“No, I got it.” Chris pins his wrists to the bed, leisurely and firm. “If I tie you up, you’re mine. You can struggle, you can move, you can feel the…the ties. Right? You want that. Feeling it.”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian begs. “Yes, sir.”  
  
“Don’t move, then.”  
  
“I won’t, I won’t—”  
  
Chris comes back with a slim dark blue length; well, that tie had been meant to evoke those thoughts. His blissed-out brain wants to laugh. Glee. Delight. Giddiness and euphoria: riding each crest and swell of endorphin rush.  
  
“So sweet.” Chris touches his wrists. “Obedient. You want to be good, don’t you? You want to be good for me.”  
  
“Yes…”  
  
Chris kneels above him, bends to kiss him, gathers up his wrists, stops again. “Will this hurt you? Here—” One thumb brushes a rope-welt, triggering a cascade of sparks. “Tell me.”  
  
“I don’t know…I can’t think, sir, god.” He shivers, tries to regain some equilibrium, blinks up at Chris through contented haze. “A little. Not more than I can handle. I want to feel it. I want…” He blinks again. Feels the crack: feels the final collapse, every emotion laid bare and honest, control yielded. Hs voice sounds slower to his own ears, dipped in dark honey. “I want to feel you. Not anyone else. Your marks.”  
  
“Got it.” His tie coils around his wrists, drugging and slow. Each loop adds a layer of pleasurable haze to his mind, blue and devouring. “What else do you like?”  
  
Sebastian can barely think. He’s on his back, arms bound above his head, Chris kneeling over him in his bed… “Touch me. Please.”  
  
“Like this?” Chris strokes a hand along his trembling body: chest, waist, the taut quiver of the spot below his belly button. Maddeningly avoids his cock, which strains upward. “Or more? Somewhere else? Ask me for what you want, Sebastian.”  
  
“Anywhere, fuck…” He’s twisting wrists now, blindly chasing the tug, the sensation. “You said you’d fuck me, Chris, please, please, I want you.”  
  
“I want,” Chris whispers, and the whisper’s sincere as blue satin in the night, “to know what you want. You keep giving me what I want, and I—if I have to make you beg for it I will. But I want to know. What you want. That would—that would be good. My good boy.”

The air vanishes from his next inhale. Dizziness, but not in a bad way. Like a sudden tsunami, a thunderclap, a drowning in rain that doesn’t smother him but lets him breathe, buoyed up into a world he’s never known where he can taste lightning and feel oceans and feel content and electric at once.  
  
Chris wants him to be good. Chris says that being good means asking for what he wants. Chris wants to know. Chris will tell him he’s been good if he can do this. Chris will touch him more, and will be happy.  
  
He breathes, “You can make me beg, I like that,” and after an eyeblink of worry Chris gets it and grins. “Brat, huh?”  
  
“You like it. Will you do something about it?”  
  
“Absolutely. Like…what would I do, again?”  
  
Sebastian considers this from beneath shimmering seas. “Nipple clamps? Cock ring? Something that hurts a little…something that means I can’t come unless you permit it…”  
  
“Mine. Even your orgasms.”  
  
“Yes, Chris.”  
  
“So…”  
  
“Drawer under the bed, on your left. You may need to touch me again after you get back.”  
  
“Of course.” Chris dives over the side of the bed, pops back up, hands full. “I don’t know how to use half that stuff. Could practice. On you.” But despite the words his first touch remains gentle: stroking, soothing, tracing circles over Sebastian’s hip. Reaffirming: he’s in charge, Sebastian’s tied up and under his hands, but Chris will be a kindly conqueror.  
  
The first bite of the clamps makes him gasp and jerk against bonds, reactions fraying. He’s normally got better control, has pleased other Dominants and clients under much harsher conditions, but the combination of sweetness and pain and the intense focus in Chris’s eyes combine to take him apart.  
  
“Still okay?”  
  
“Good,” Sebastian manages, though it’s more of a whimper. His nipples ache; Chris leans down to lick one of them, which sends undulations of glorious anguish through his body. “God, yes—please, more, I need—”  
  
“You like feeling everything.” Chris kisses his stomach. The beard scrapes across tender skin, leaving pinkness. “You like knowing I’m doing this to you. Still feel like being a brat?”  
  
“Yes…if…it’ll get you to do more…if you _can_ …”  
  
“Oooh,” Chris says, and flicks fingertips against his cock: a sharp swift impact that makes his shaft bob. Sebastian yelps. Chris licks his own fingers, strokes them back over the shaft, grinning. “Challenge accepted. Not sure how to actually use a cock ring, never have, and they look kinda small to put on you now…”  
  
Sebastian opens his mouth to argue.  
  
“…but I did find rope. I’m good with knots.” Chris holds it up: silken black cord, obsidian and wicked. “How do you feel about being tied up more?”  
  
He can’t even be disappointed. Chris can tie his legs too, can tie him to the bed, and then can claim him without resistance. “Yes please.”  
  
“Just remember you said yes,” Chris says happily, and trails cord across his cock, intentions abruptly plain.  
  
Sebastian gasps out loud as the first loop settles around his base. He can’t even think.  
  
Chris hasn’t practiced shibari before but has indeed done some reading and is, yes, good with ropes and knots. It's not a full-body version, but by the end Sebastian’s cock’s coiled in black silkiness and held tight, cord looping under his balls, end tugged up and tied off by Chris. It hurts and it’s incredible, restraint and assertion: his body belongs to Chris now, bound by those hands and their mutual desire. One knot rubs persistently over the slit at his cock-head, a tight small nub of pleasure-pain, soaking in the evidence of his need. He’s dripping wet and lightheaded with bliss.  
  
Chris bends down to kiss him, looming over him, filling up his vision. Everything Sebastian needs. A whole world. “How’s that?”  
  
He can’t talk. He whines. Wriggles. Makes inarticulate incoherent sounds. Begs.  
  
“Not so much a brat now?” Chris says, half amused, half concerned.  
  
“Please,” Sebastian pleads, “please, please—I need—yours, I’m yours, always, I always was, please fuck me, I need you…” He isn’t thinking about the words. They spill free. Like the newfound wetness on his cheeks, like the agonizing dripping pleasure at the head of his cock.  
  
“You want me to fuck you like this?” One big hand closes around his imprisoned cock. Squeezes. Causes a desperate wail. “What if I want to watch you come?”  
  
“Anything.” He’s wholly Chris’s now. “Anything you want, please…because I want that. I’m yours, I’m yours, that’s what I want, you wanted to know, that’s everything, I just want to be good for you, please use me.”  
  
“Oh, sweet boy,” Chris whispers, kissing him once more. This kiss tastes slightly wet, like seawater. “My sweet Sebastian.”  
  
Chris gets him wet first, slick expensive lube that slides like water on glass. Chris slips a finger in, testing; Sebastian’s drifting, shuddering, awash with starlight. He’s open and loose already, hole craving occupation; when the finger’s replaced by a thick strong condom-sheathed cock, he moans.  
  
Chris pushes in with no resistance at all, one inexorable slide to the hilt; and stops, breathing fast, gazing down at his face. “God. You…”  
  
Sebastian murmurs, “Chris,” and would lift bound hands to touch that face, but his limbs’ve gone heavy and sluggish.  
  
“So beautiful,” Chris breathes. “So amazing, Sebastian, you’re so good, you feel so good…”  
  
“You too. Feeling…good.” He rocks hips upward into Chris’s, liking the additional flare as his own cock’s pinned between them. “More?”  
  
And Chris laughs, and kisses him sure and swift, and moves.  
  
Chris fucks him tenderly but fiercely, like a man given a single wish come true for a night. Chris pulls back and teases him with the tip, then slams into him, making him cry out; Chris moves inside him in incremental nudges, rocking right into the spot that bursts with sun-spark radiance. Chris makes him see stars and come apart, hands and lips caressing his body like an act of worship. Sebastian cries and keens and begs, back arching, thighs spread and quivering, none of it practiced, all of it drawn out of him by Chris’s lavish attention.  
  
Chris’s fingers flick off one nipple clamp. Then the other. Sebastian does scream, shaking, at the pounding rush of returning sensation. He needs to come, he needs to curl up around his aching nipples and sob, he needs more—  
  
Chris laps at his nipple with a cruelly soft tongue, bathing the hurt in new heat. Pauses, hips still pumping leisurely, cock moving inside him, to whisper, “I want to feel you come. If I untie you, will you come for me?”  
  
Sebastian nods through tears of incandescent joy. Chris will take care of him.  
  
Chris’s hands find one knot and pull and the pressure binding his cock falls away. Chris’s fingers cup his shaft, thumb rubbing over his tormented slit; Chris’s voice commands, “Come,” in his ear, low and possessive, and he does.  
  
The peak’s like nothing he’s ever felt. It goes on and on, wave after wave of euphoric release. Nothing hurts; he only knows sheer crystalline bliss, flying, spilling pulse after pulse between them, onto Chris’s hand, onto their bodies.  
  
Chris groans and thrusts inside him. Harder. Pounding. Wild. Sebastian hears his own cries, thin and faraway and broken; feels himself move unthinkingly in time with each plunge. His hole clenches; his body shakes and arches up and shudders through a new explosion of diamonds. Chris gasps his name, and tenses, and is coming too: body stiff, mouth open, cock buried inside him.  
  
He’s not very awake in the aftermath, drowsy and overwhelmed by the onslaught. He knows Chris unties his hands, peels away sticky rope, finds a damp washcloth, disposes of condom. He knows that the bed dips as Chris settles next to him, pulling him close. Chris strokes his hair, murmurs words too low to hear. Sebastian nestles into his Dominant’s warmth, and nuzzles lips over Chris’ collarbone, and yawns, and rests: not asleep, but not thinking any thoughts, emptied out and sated and brought to peace.  
  
He resurfaces to Chris singing under his breath, more classic rock. He listens for a minute; the words resolve themselves first, those and the solid shield of Chris’s chest. “…Simon and Garfunkel?”  
  
“Hey, you’re up.” Chris squirms around to get them more eye to eye. One hand cradles Sebastian’s cheek. “How’re you feeling?”  
  
“Was that… ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’?”  
  
“When tears are in your eyes,” Chris quotes, “I’ll dry them all…you were crying, y’know. You didn’t ask me to stop, you asked for more, but…”  
  
“Yes.” He’s smiling. Somehow weightless. Exhausted and energized. Renewed. “Yes. You were…that was incredible.”  
  
“Oh thank god, ’cause I didn’t know what I was doin’. Are you okay? You didn’t answer me.”  
  
“I’m incredible. Tired. But happy. So happy I could…I don’t know. Float away. Like a balloon. Except not away, because you’d hold onto me. I’m sorry, this is me thinking out loud, you get to see the inside of my head now…”  
  
“I like your head.” Chris leans in to kiss him. “I’ll keep you anchored. What do you need right now?”  
  
“Right now…I might be hungry. I do like food. But…”  
  
“But?”  
  
“I don’t want you to let go.”  
  
“Hmm.” Chris glances around the bedroom. Gets an excited glint in those eyes. “Okay. You put everything in your fridge? From earlier?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Okay. You stay put. And give me your leg.”  
  
Sebastian, startled but not unwilling, lets Chris heap blankets atop him. Obligingly sticks a foot out of the nest. He’s got an idea of what Chris wants; he’s excited too.  
  
Chris finishes securing his ankle to the bed. Considers handiwork: one of Sebastian’s heavier cuff restraints, which apparently he’d discovered in another drawer, and a long leash. “Yep. I like you like this. Tied to the bed for me.”  
  
“All yours,” Sebastian agrees, “sir. Now bring me food.”  
  
Chris laughs, and goes.  
  
Alone for a moment, he looks down at his ankle, wrapped in leather and padding. At the leash attaching him to the bed. Chris put him here.  
  
Chris tucked him into blankets, kissed him, and is bringing him food. After having fucked him to the point of mindless rapturous ecstasy.  
  
And, yes, Chris will have to go soon. Yes, he’ll have to come down to earth and cope with the post-scene fallout. Yes, this might be temporary. Chris had wanted to talk to Pratt, to have dinner with Pratt, before saying yes to this night.  
  
But Chris wants him. That’s indisputable. Chris cares for him. No matter what else happens, this night is perfect. He’ll have this memory forever. And it’s not over yet.  
  
He ends up hugging blankets to his chest, laughing foolishly.  
  
Chris comes back in, balancing a plate. His eyes light up. “You look…”  
  
“More awake?” And riding the aftermath of the rollercoaster, the high of an amazing catharsis, trust and capitulation and love and safe harbor. “I feel wonderful.”  
  
“Good.” Chris sits down, sits with him, feeds him a strawberry. The night cavorts around them: a dancing oasis of lamplight and dark bedposts and coiled satin rope, of naked skin and rumpled sheets. “Good. I mean, for me too, that was…I’ve never felt anything like…I know I said I did some reading, but. Fuck.”  
  
“I’d like to think I’m better than your reading.” He’s still a bit shaky, off-balance inside; teasing sarcasm can help cover this up. It’s not bad shakiness, only reaction as the high wears off. “Everything you hoped for, I…hope.”  
  
Chris holds a glass of water to his lips. Straw in it for ease of sipping. Eyes level and honest. “Yes.”  
  
Sebastian swallows. Nods back: too intimate for words.  
  
Chris feeds him some more, gives him sips of water, pets his hair. Settles Sebastian’s head against his chest, as they lounge propped up by pillows in bed. Sebastian closes eyes, loving the caresses, the even strokes of petting.  
  
“Hey.” Chris’s voice rumbles low and cozy; Sebastian says dreamily, “I can feel it when you talk, I like that,” and Chris laughs, which he likes even more. “So you are awake. You don’t have to be, but is there anything we should talk about? Like, the scene? Are we supposed to discuss after?”  
  
“Oh…we can. I don’t have any critiques, though. I enjoyed it.” He sits up, or starts to; Chris’s hand presses him back into place. “Is there something you wanted to ask?”  
  
“Um…not specifically. I mean, I enjoyed it too, you know I—you didn’t mind me not knowing much?”  
  
“You know more than you think you do.” He considers possibilities. “I can show you some toys if you want, but you have good instincts. You were good about checking in with me, too.”  
  
“Yeah, about that.” Chris’s fingers skim his mouth, feeding him more berries. Sebastian kisses juice away. “Should I have asked you about safewords or whatever? Stoplights? Signals? I didn’t think…”  
  
“For tonight, not necessarily. If I’d asked you to stop, you would have. I know you, and you would have. In the future, yes, you probably should work that out ahead of time. With—with your partner.”  
  
“What do you use?” Chris watches him with endearing eagerness. “What should I know?”  
  
“Oh…standard stoplights, red, yellow, green…if you want a proper safeword, a sort of red alert I-can’t-even-think panic switch, it’s winter. But if I say red that’s a stop now.”  
  
“Okay, got it—”  
  
“Those work for you too.” Sebastian stretches his leg, pulls it up to feel the tug at the leash, to see Chris’s eyes go dark at the tension. “Stoplights. Slow down. Stop. If you want a safeword. Dominants get them as well.”  
  
Chris blinks.  
  
“I’ve had someone use his,” Sebastian confirms. Chris might need this assurance. “Early on, when I was still…seeing clients…he was whipping me—don’t make that face, sir, thank you, I like that sometimes—and he had a bad memory, it turned out, of his ex-boyfriend and ex-submissive, who’d gotten hurt doing exactly that. So this very sweet man tried to employ me to help him express his urges, and had a panic attack about two swings in…”  
  
“Oh, no.” Chris nibbles a pizza roll, eyes curious and distressed on someone else’s behalf. “I can’t even imagine. That’s awful, seriously. For him and for you, I guess. What’d you do?”  
  
Chris assumes he’d done something to help; he had, of course, but the thought that Chris thinks so—  
  
That makes him flush with pleasure. “I got him to untie me—staying calm, obviously, one of us had to, and anyway I was barely even in that headspace, I could come right up—and told him I was fine, let him look at me, check my back, check my pulse, everything. And I got him to lie down in bed with me and let me talk, and I told him I was glad he’d stopped the scene, not because I was hurt, but because I wanted him to be comfortable and to know his own limits, like I knew mine, and I was impressed by his willingness to use a safeword if necessary. He was,” he adds, “surprised, I think,” and Chris nods, after a second.  
  
“Bet he believed you. I would.”  
  
“He did. And we ended up spending an enjoyable night together. Nothing like you, tonight, but fun.” They’d gotten around to floggers by the end. Sebastian tactfully doesn’t mention the sizzling glory of that sensation, or the triumphant afterglow when that man had held him in the wake of it, and cried like the absolution of sin. That’s personal to that client, and he doesn’t share.  
  
He thinks that Chris gets it anyway, when one hand touches his cheek, brushes the spot where tears’d fallen earlier. “You do save everyone, don’t you…”  
  
“And you’re in my bed.” He waits; sees Chris get the emphasis. _You’re_ in my bed. Not everyone.  
  
Chris’s lips part. “No one else…you never…”  
  
“Never brought anyone up here? No. I never found anyone who loves Disney movies and my cooking and whisking me away to whiskey bars for dessert at lunch.”  
  
Chris shakes with sudden laughter against him. “Sounds like a cool guy.”  
  
“Extremely cool. Did I mention he’s a famous movie director?”  
  
“Famous? I don’t know about—”  
  
“And extraordinary in bed.”  
  
“Okay, I’ll take that one. How’re the bruises? Your wrists?”  
  
“Oh, fine. They appreciate the concern, though. Why? Did you have plans?”  
  
Chris’s eyebrows go up. “Again?”  
  
“Well. Not if you’re tired, sir.”  
  
“Come here and I’ll show you tired—” Chris grumbles, and hauls him across that lap for a very thorough spanking, which in turn leads to Chris fucking him from behind while he’s on hands and knees, leg remaining tied to the bedpost, each thrust a delirious impact against scorching handprints. Afterwards they collapse in a sticky exhilarated pile, panting, holding each other.  
  
“Wow,” Chris says, feeding him a miniature pancake, long cold. “Wow.”  
  
“Oh yes.”  
  
“You comfortable like this?” With a tug at the ankle-leash. “Want it off?”  
  
“I like it on. I like getting off. With you. I like you on top of me. What was your question?”  
  
“God, I lo—love being with you.” Chris shakes his head, blush staining the tips of his ears. He has more freckles, Sebastian notes idly, lying in his lap. Scattered boyishly over cheekbones and shoulders. Irish-fair, with those fascinating tattoos. “How’d you ever say yes to me?”  
  
And then he stops, because the echo of earlier words comes back like a ghost to rattle chains around: I only see clients in emergency situations…  
  
Sebastian hesitates. Can’t not say it. “Did you…you wanted me, right? Tonight?”  
  
“ _What?”_ Chris says.  
  
“I only…I know I wasn’t your first choice, you had plans with Pratt and I—”  
  
“I had plans with Pratt because he’s a _friend_ and I wanted to ask him—” The roar deflates. “Um.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Um…”  
  
“Was it personal? If it’s about the kink, the sex, I might be able to help. So I’m asking. If I can. Ask.” He bites a lip, changes his mind: “Never mind. You don’t have to—you wanted to ask him, not me.”  
  
Chris mutters, “Not how I meant you to take that,” followed by a few mild profanities, not enough to make the bedding blush. Sebastian doesn’t know how to take _that_ , either.  
  
Chris notices. Makes a face. Cuddles him more closely. The cuff tugs at that ankle when he moves just to feel it. “I can ask you. I was—oh, hell, I guess it doesn’t matter now. I was gonna ask him about things you might like. Um, with you being…submissive…if he knew anything I should do for you. Kinda new at this.”  
  
“You’re fantastic at this!”  
  
“Don’t say so if I’m not. You don’t have to, I don’t know, massage my ego or whatever, I’m not—” Chris cuts himself off, breathes. His arm tenses: unhappy, holding it in. “Don’t do that. Be honest. Please. The other part was, not just you bein’ submissive or whatever, but if there was anything you’d let me do for _you_. Anything you might accept. From me. I thought he might know. What you’d say yes to.”  
  
Sebastian opens his mouth, runs out of words, lies there hanging between mortification and hope.  
  
“But then you called,” Chris finishes, glancing down at his face, almost bashful except for the fingers sneaking up to toy with a oversensitive nipple. “You called and said—I could have you. For one night. I couldn’t believe it. Still can’t.”  
  
“I told you I want you,” Sebastian murmurs, reaching up to catch Chris’s hand with his own: not to cease ministrations, but to feel them. “I promise I’m not massaging your…ego, Chris.”  
  
They both end up laughing, this time.  
  
Later, later in the dream of a night, Chris does slip a cock ring onto him, given instruction; Chris ties him to all four bedposts and works a vibrator into him and then slicks himself up and carefully slides down onto Sebastian’s rigid length, and uses him that way, taking his own pleasure; Sebastian cries and sobs and begs to be allowed to come, and Chris laughs and admonishes him against coming and fucks himself more on Sebastian’s cock, treating him like a toy while the vibrator purrs ceaselessly inside him and the cock ring bites down and _hurts_ and Chris orders him not to get off, only to be used, to be an instrument for Chris’s own orgasm.  
  
Sebastian swears in multiple languages and pleads and thrashes against restraints and doesn’t call a halt. Eventually he lets go. He stops asking, stops demanding. And when he does, he crumbles and dissolves and opens up into an endlessly sublime tranquil state: he’s Chris’s, he belongs to his Dominant, the throb between his legs and the billows of rapture all belong to Chris, he’ll come or not on command and he doesn’t have to know anything except what Chris wants, being good for Chris…  
  
Chris comes across him in a hot sticky spurt, splashing him with it. Sebastian lies almost limp, floating, registering each sensation like a new discovery, innocent and resplendent and uninhibited about any of his own sounds or reactions.  
  
Chris slides off him, strips the condom off, strokes his cock. Gathers up some of his own climax, white and wet and warm, and pushes messy fingers into Sebastian’s mouth; he sucks them clean eagerly. Chris’s other hand snaps open the cock ring—Sebastian trembles, gagged by fingers, poised—and cradles his cock while permission’s given, and Chris holds him through it, plays with him through it, leaves the vibrator deep inside him until he’s coming again, blindly, nothing left but dry sharp spasms that white out his mind.  
  
He’s crying freely after that, broken apart and claimed as whole, as belonging. Chris asks whether he’s okay; he can’t talk, nodding through tears, cleansed. He cuddles into Chris’s offered arms and presses kisses to Chris’s chest, collarbone, throat: clumsy and pure.  
  
Chris gets worried after a while. “Seb? Come on, baby, you gotta talk to me, okay? Please? Not much, just enough to check in, can you give me a color, come on, please?”  
  
“Green,” Sebastian sobs, “Chris, Chris, please—”  
  
“What do you need, baby?” Chris pets his hair, rubs his back: reassuring small circles. “Anything. I’m right here.”  
  
“I don’t—I don’t know, I—I just need—” He needs to get closer. He needs to be with Chris. “Was that—was I—good?”  
  
“Oh, fuck, _that’s_ what you’re worried about?” Chris laughs, shaking his head. “Yeah, Sebastian. You’re good. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And yeah, that was amazing. So good. My good boy.”  
  
The world fuzzes out in contented white. Sebastian makes a small sound of acknowledgement, nestles into muscular warmth, mouths at the nearest tattoo to kiss. Maybe he sleeps; maybe he simply loses time, in the clouds.  
  
The next time he wakes up, Chris decides to test out his bathtub. Sebastian, none too present, makes indistinct gestures at knobs; Chris steadies him with an arm, figures bathroom fixtures out, gets them both into the tub. Heat and steam rise, carrying away weariness and soreness and small aches; clean sweet soap and a hint of neroli-vanilla oil ease overstimulated senses. Chris bathes him with devout attention: lifting his arms, laving his legs, kneading shampoo through sweat-damp hair. Chris keeps talking to him, low susurration of words and syllables. The bathroom’s intimate and gilded: dimmed lights, familiar counters and mirrors, the lap of water over naked skin. Chris holds him, and they get clean together.  
  
They fall asleep together. They sleep entwined in Sebastian’s bed with the towering bedposts, which smile benevolently down. They sleep while morning tiptoes in outside, lavender dawn and crisp city air and life stirring out of doors for early jogs and jobs. They only curl closer under sheets, protecting each other against pale sunbeam reminders about a rapidly-arriving future; and they sleepily trade kisses, and drift off into dreams again.


	11. thursday morning, friday morning, and the rest of their lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which love conquers all. (Also, kinky sex, love confessions, shared secrets, trust, and cuddling.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! Gosh. Thanks for reading, you guys. I love you.
> 
> I MIGHT write the one-chapter Chris POV version (obviously with scene-breaks for time-jumps), perhaps, if I have time and people want to see it...I did think of a really good internal monologue line for him, this morning...
> 
>  **Small warnings for:** the kinky sex, plus brief discussion of past self-harm and anxiety and boys seeing therapists, in context of them talking about it.

They awaken late. Sebastian wakes up first, and for a second can’t recall what’s happened, why he feels relaxed and comforted and secure, defenses down, castle gates thrown wide for the conqueror—and he wonders why he’s in his bed and someone else is there too, bare shoulder serving as his pillow—bare shoulder, bare chest, tattoo-ink—  
  
Chris Evans. Chris Evans, in his bed.  
  
Chris Evans, in his bed, because Sebastian invited him there.  
  
He doesn’t move, first out of shock and then because he really doesn’t want to. Chris has an arm cuddling him; Chris’s chest radiates solid heat. Sebastian’s body feels good: loose, relieved, tumbled free from care.  
  
It’s a Thursday, he thinks, listening to morning hush, legs tangled in his own sheets and Chris’s possessive calves. Chris had first called the agency on a Wednesday; Friday would’ve been better—the first day they’d met—but this is right too. Not any already-claimed day of the week; not fairy-tale flawless, but hard-earned, and true.  
  
Chris doesn’t exactly snore, but does breathe deeply in his sleep, adorable masculine whuffles of breath. Sebastian wants to kiss him. Sebastian wants to jump up and write a love story and sing classic rock harmonies with him. And maybe some passing bluebirds.   
  
He lets himself feel warm. Thawed out by lazy morning light, haphazard blankets, Chris Evans cuddling him.  
  
Chris blinks, waking up, making obscure sleepy noises. He’s got bed-hair and a pillow-crease on one cheek. Sebastian’s pillow, claiming him. Sebastian’s heart’s already surrendered.  
  
Chris blinks again, gets the world into focus, spots Sebastian gazing at him, and melts into a radiant puddle. His whole face lights up; his hand starts petting Sebastian’s nearest shoulder as if unable to contain itself. “Hey. You, um, you’re up.”  
  
“Barely.” He nestles closer, unselfconscious about wanting to twine himself around every part of Chris. Ivy over a stalwart wall; Chris is his sturdy tower. “Like a minute ago. Watching you sleep. Extraordinarily creepy. Run away now if you want.”  
  
“Nah. I like knowin’ you like looking at me.” The hand rubs his back, reassuring and commanding and happy. “You good? I mean, yeah, you are good, but you know what I mean. We didn’t hurt you, or…”  
  
“I’d tell you if we had.” He kisses Chris’s collarbone, nibbling slightly, biting down; earning a playful swat, and he laughs into the spot just kissed, and Chris pulls him into a crushing hug, laughing too, inarticulate foolish joy. Sheets scrunch up in shared inexpressible merriment; Chris flips him to his back, balances above him, steals another kiss. Sebastian says, “Mmm, yes, sir,” and wriggles under him, watching those eyes darken. “Very nice.”  
  
“I’ll show you nice,” Chris threatens, one hand encircling eager wrists, rubbing at red marks. “Can you hold still? If I tell you to? For me? I don’t want to tie you down…”  
  
“You don’t?”  
  
“Okay, I want to tie you down, but not when you’re healing.” Chris gets nose to nose with him: silly, teasing, but utterly serious. That’s a Dominant tone. “And you’re not gonna argue. You want me to give you orders, you want me to decide what you get to have, so you’re gonna listen, and you’ll be good. Clear?”  
  
“Oh fuck,” Sebastian says, body reacting, taut and quivering as a bowstring, arrow drawn back for flight, “yes, Chris.”  
  
“Good boy,” Chris affirms, “don’t move your hands, don’t move anything, don’t come without permission, Sebastian,” and begins kissing him: kissing him everywhere, lips and throat and stomach and nipples and thighs and his straining cock, and Sebastian swears and threatens and curses in multiple languages but stays in place as instructed, tormented by sensation and seeing stars. Chris doesn’t stop until he’s whimpering, driven half-mad by caresses, overstimulated and yet unsatisfied, having long since lost words.  
  
Chris orders him again to not move, and fucks him slowly, excruciatingly deliberate drawn-out motions. Sebastian sobs and begs and opens up for each thrust: feeling every inch as it sinks home inside him, draws back, fills him anew. It’s a brand-new form of splendid torture, this inexorable kindness: relentless paradoxical gentleness that brings him to the edge over and over, keeps him bewildered amid the onslaught of care, drowns ability to speak or move, suffuses and replaces his thoughts with only Chris: Chris’s touch, Chris’s low voice, Chris’s body moving in him and atop him, Chris’s hands and commands.  
  
Chris stops moving, buried to the hilt inside him. One hand cups Sebastian’s cheek. Sebastian whimpers, mindless, cherished and cradled and possessed. Chris holds his gaze like a man guarding the treasure at the heart of the world, and whispers, “Come for me.”  
  
Sebastian does. He can’t do otherwise; Chris told him to, and his mind peacefully empties itself of everything but sunbeams and blue eyes, and he comes like sunbeams too, a spill of heat and light between their bodies that picks him up and carries him away.  
  
He hears Chris gasp, feels Chris start to move again, faster thrusts and stuttering hips. He lets the sensation wash over him, being pounded and pummeled and claimed like rocks in a stream. He hears himself make a small sound, a cry, as Chris hits that bright spot inside him, striking fire. Chris groans in answer, tenses, and shudders all over, body going taut.  
  
Sebastian, limp and rocked by waves of euphoria as they ebb and crest and drain, murmurs words—not even English, barely comprehensible, he’s saying Chris’s name and saying yes and saying please and saying yes sir and crying a little—and clings to Chris, who kisses him, cradles his head, strokes his hair, tells him he’s beautiful and so unbelievable, amazing, incredible, he feels so good, he was so good, listening so well, such a good sweet submissive, being so good for Chris and making Chris feel good too. Sebastian glows.  
  
Chris cleans them both up, tossing this morning’s condom, kissing Sebastian’s left knee on the way back for no apparent reason; and hops back into bed with him, cuddling him close. One big strong arm wraps around him, pulling him in to rest on that chest; the other one pets his hip. “You awake, baby?”  
  
“No,” Sebastian says dreamily. “Out in space somewhere. Venus. Hyperbolic comets. Galactic tides. Fuck, sir.”  
  
Chris laughs, though the sound’s tinted with another emotion. Sebastian’s too fuzzy to pinpoint that precise shade. “Galactic tides, huh? Want me to make a joke about tidal stripping? I can. Never met anyone else who’d put up with space geek jokes right after sex.” His hand’s reaffirming, tracing idle soothing shapeless patterns over Sebastian’s tingling skin. “Definitely celestial. I like your hip, you know that? This spot right here.”  
  
Sebastian tries to peek; Chris’s hand presses him back down. He settles readily under control, being petted. “Why that spot?”  
  
“Don’t know. Just ’cause. I like all of you, though. Your ass. Your cute little nipples. Are they always hard? And your— “  
  
“Around you, yes. You hadn’t noticed? Or I’m permanently cold.”  
  
“I’ll keep you warm.” Chris rolls them over slightly, so Sebastian’s stretched out atop his sheets with Chris’s weight holding him down, Chris’s lips seeking out other spots to praise. “And your shoulders, I was gonna say. You could probably bench-press me. I lo—I like that you could. And you stay put because I tell you to. I like your arms. Your elbow. This one, right here.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Mmm-hmm. Your hands…” Chris is kissing his forearm, lips and beard-scratchiness trailing along tingling skin. “The way you run hands through your hair when you’re trying to think of words. This wrist—” Words stop brushing over veins, then: an indrawn breath. The world stops too, hanging in crystal-sharp comprehension.  
  
Chris touches his wrist. Lifts his gaze: to Sebastian’s face. Sebastian needs a second to remember—it’s been that long, and it’s not on his mind—but the location of that touch gives it away. “Chris,” he says, looping a leg around one immobile calf, Chris’s limbs stilled by shock. “I’m fine. These days. Right now. With you. Before you, even; I run our agency, you know.”  
  
“I know. I know you are.” Chris nevertheless looks stunned, the uncomprehending hurt of a puppy knowing its owner’s been in pain, not knowing what to do, hoping a slipper in mouth or a clumsy kiss can heal. “I never noticed.” Artist’s fingers trace those old faded lines: silver razor-thin memories, decades worn, antique barely-legible language. “You…you were hurting that much…I mean, wait, those _are_ what I—what I think…”  
  
“They are. I was a lot younger, and lonely, and afraid I could never be good enough at anything, for anyone. I didn’t know how to stop being unhappy, and I couldn’t talk to my mother—she wanted me to be excited about our new life—and I thought about just…” He would shrug, but Chris is holding his arm. “You can see what I thought about. Obviously I didn’t.”  
  
“God.” Chris exhales. Heavy. But watching his eyes, his honesty, with that reply; and letting some part of the tension go. “You…I’m so sorry. I wish I’d been there. Not that I would’ve known what to say, I never know what to say, but I’d’ve held you. If you’d wanted that. What, um, what happened? You said these days you don’t…”  
  
“First I scared myself—the two you can see, there, those were the worst two, and they were fairly, um, not good—and I stopped for a while, and then I went to college. And I got a little less unhappy, and then I found theater, and then I got more…less unhappy…and I went to England and studied Shakespeare, and I graduated and came back and I had some friends and I had Mackie and then we had this place and we were helping people.” He nudges Chris’s leg with his foot. “Plus I have a therapist. I don’t see her regularly anymore, but when I need to.”  
  
“Oh,” Chris says, in the tone of someone who’d been expecting to do a great deal more emotional hand-holding and is consequently both confused and hopeful. “That’s…really awesome, actually. Healthy. You _are_ okay.”  
  
“Told you I was. Bad days once in a while—it’s not something you wake up one day and get over—but mostly I’m spectacular.” He bats eyelashes, gazing up. Safe: himself in bed with Chris, taken apart and put back together, annealed and cleansed and made whole. He can say anything. He can _be_ himself: intimate, or intimately ridiculous. Speaking of which— “Space jokes and all. Know how you organize a party in outer space, sir? You planet.”  
  
“Oh my god,” Chris says.  
  
“Why doesn’t the Dog Star have a sense of humor?”  
  
“It’s too Sirius.” Chris dives in to kiss him, grinning. “Anyone ever tell you you’re fucking perfect? Also, hey, we can compare therapist stories sometime if you want. Mine’s not as—not the same as what you went through, but I did see someone for a couple years. Social anxiety shit. Got so bad I couldn’t do interviews or talk to my crew. So, yeah. Not like yours, but I’ve been there.”  
  
Sebastian wants to answer. Can’t think of any words. Nothing equal to the enormity of the trust Chris has just bestowed upon him. He ends up kissing Chris back, trying to speak without words.  
  
“Also, you know what helps? Disney movie sing-alongs. Proven fact. Therapeutic. I’ll sing to you later.”  
  
He even keeps the straight face for a few seconds before he starts laughing; Sebastian, laughing along, hums the first bars of Thomas O’Malley’s song from _The Aristocats_ , going semi-obscure for fun. Chris jumps in right away, delighted and goofy and unbearably wonderful, singing Disney songs naked in bed to him.   
  
Morning flows without fanfare into afternoon, outside. The world spins, merry and gilded, serenely aware of melody and light and life and playful explorations with vibrators and plush cuffs and spankings and paddles, which Chris learns about and employs enthusiastically. They both like bare hands, that’s a favorite, skin meeting skin; but the variety of sensation’s good for keeping him in subspace, wholly under, at the mercy of the next choice. Chris checks in and worries about hurting him and even says “yellow, hang on—” at one point when Sebastian’s crying too hard after a smack with the studded paddle-version—Chris isn’t really a sadist, they decide, as far as the BDSM acronym goes; too much kindness, but dominant, fuck yes. Chris likes taking care of his submissive, likes giving him what he needs, likes bringing him to mind-shattering bliss over and over. Chris likes knowing that Sebastian can call a halt at any point, and if he doesn’t it’s because he’s wanting it all just as much, equal scorching desire. Gift and acceptance, and laughter, through the long unfolding of the day.   
  
They both field a few phone calls. Sebastian checks in with the agency and orders dog-walking assistance delivered to Pratt’s family while lying on his stomach, with one ankle cuffed to the bed again and Chris’s tongue discovering his ass. Chris had put a cock cage on him earlier, one of the pretty jewelry-style set, and his body aches with pleasure and pain as he trips over words, and he adores it. Anthony audibly rolls eyes and tells him not to come in. Sebastian says, “You lied about needing to switch nights so I’d be free for—oh _futu-i_ , yes, Chris, _god_ —for Chris,” and Anthony says happily, “Have fun, kid, we’ve collectively decided you don’t have to come in today,” and hangs up on him.  
  
Chris pauses in his task to suggest, “Nah, I get to decide when you come,” and scratches short fingernails across red spanking-marks, making him scream and squirm futilely against the bed. His cock drips wet, pooling beneath him; caged, it tries to swell, and sends delirious showers of heady molten gold down his spine. He’s sobbing when Chris fucks him, when Chris shoves fingers into his loosened hole and presses against that coil of ecstasy and wrings a stream of milky release from his body. He moans, mouth hanging open. He lets go. Lets it pour out. Becomes purely instinct, response, instrument.   
  
Chris strips the cage off, later, and licks his poor abused cock, maddeningly soft laps over tender sore flesh. Sebastian begs, though he doesn’t know what for. He’s empty and light and floating like a stormcloud spiked with electric pain and white-hot pleasure. Chris tells him to come and he’s not sure he can but he does, a jerk of hips, a spasm of unadulterated bliss, a brief spatter of drops and dryness across his own stomach. Chris kisses him and tells him he’s doing so well, he’s making Chris so proud, after that one.  
  
Chris makes his own phone call with Sebastian tucked between his legs, mouth stuffed full of that thick cock, Chris’s hand on his head holding him down. Chris keeps him there, not even moving much, simply using his mouth and throat as a warm resting-place, thrusting upward occasionally. Sebastian can’t breathe much—enough, but not much—and feels the weight of that hand on his head, and loves every moment.  
  
They nap. They wake up. Sebastian, well-used and drunk on praise and petting, deep enough in subspace that he can’t make decisions, murmurs something that isn’t a word when Chris asks if he wants food, and cuddles closer. Chris laughs, but asks again a few minutes later. “Sebastian? Hey, come on, wake up… how’re you feeling?”  
  
Sebastian opens his mouth. Discovers that he can’t talk. Hides his face in Chris’s neck.  
  
“Okay,” Chris says slowly. “You know more about this than I do, and you didn’t say stop or anything, but…I’m a little worried, baby, okay? You look pretty out of it. Can you talk? Look at me?”  
  
He manages a headshake. He can’t. Overwhelming. Not a specific order. If Chris says so he will. He just wants to be held and to stay here forever, high as colorful kites, ribbon-tails fluttering.  
  
“Sebastian.” Gentle, careful, but firm. A Dominant’s voice. “Tell me how you’re doing.”  
  
Chris seems to understand that looking up is too much, like looking into the sun; it’s an order to talk, not to do both. He whispers, finding a voice, “Safe. Warm. I like you holding me, sir.”  
  
“I like that too, kid.” Chris rubs his back. “You still pretty far under? How, um, how long…not that I mind taking care of you, I don’t, but I don’t know enough about this yet. Kinda need you to help me out here.”  
  
“Talk to me,” Sebastian says after a few seconds of trying to focus. Chris needs him. “And feed me. Make me sit up. Don’t stop touching me, I need…I need you, you’re my anchor…but if you want me to come back you need to make me focus.”  
  
“Got food in here?”  
  
“Um…top drawer. Bedside table.”  
  
Chris investigates. “Chocolate-covered espresso beans? One hundred percent not surprised. Here.”  
  
Several nibbles of coffee-cocoa and sips of water later, the waves part and he can mostly resurface, not weighed down by deep glorious oceans. Chris hasn’t let go, being an excellent anchor and security blanket, and has Sebastian propped up against his chest and between his legs, back to the headboard. “Better?”  
  
“ _Da_ …yes. Thanks.” He eats one more bean when fingers pop it into his mouth. “Congratulations.”  
  
“Huh? Why?”  
  
“I haven’t…I can’t even remember the last time I ended up nonverbal. Not because I have trouble remembering when I’m that far under, I mean, because I haven’t gone down that far in…” He tips his head back against Chris’s heat. “As I said. I can’t remember. And now there’s you.”  
  
“Me,” Chris repeats softly, awe in those eyes, in the set of those shoulders.   
  
“Very much you. Can we order pizza?”  
  
Chris’s eyebrows go up, entertained. “I swear you’re my fantasy person. Except real. Sex, pizza, outer space…can I bathe you again after?”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian agrees, yawning, “now summon us pepperoni, sir,” and settles in for a nap against Chris’s chest until belated lunch arrives.  
  
Chris doesn’t mention leaving. Sebastian, stomach full, freshly cleaned and cared for and adorned with healing lotion for a few raw spots, curls up in offered arms as they watch Disney’s _Robin Hood_ in his bed. The animals sing about hope and heroes. Sebastian thinks that Chris should be a prince: a good one, a true one, a compassionate man and an openhanded ruler. He closes his eyes.  
  
He thinks: I’ve never let anyone else come up here.  
  
He thinks: I know we said one night. I know you have to fly out tomorrow.  
  
He thinks, so clearly he’s amazed each syllable doesn’t ring from the walls like the peal of a bell: I love you. Please stay.  
  
He looks up. Chris, beaming at the antics of animated foxes and bears and rabbits, pauses to drop an absently affectionate kiss on the corner of his mouth. Casual, secure, reaffirming.  
  
After the movie, Chris does look at him. One hand brushes a curl of Sebastian’s sleep-fluffy hair back down. Recalcitrant, it pops back up; Chris’s mouth quirks. “Adorable.”  
  
“My hair,” Sebastian says, “is…fucking…well, this. I don’t even know,” and pushes his head back into Chris’s hand for more caresses.  
  
“Kitten,” Chris says, chuckling, and obeys. “You, um…you know I have to…the crew, everybody, we’re on a flight out to LA in the morning, first thing…”  
  
“…I know.”  
  
“You said one night.” Chris’s eyes are heartbreakingly hopeful. “Would you—even if I have to leave tomorrow—can I…”  
  
“Stay,” Sebastian says. “Tonight. Stay here. With me.”  
  
“Yeah,” Chris says, and kisses him. “That.”  
  
They sleep together, naked, content.  
  
Sebastian wakes up this time because Chris’s alarm goes off, playing classic rock into the air. Five am; the world’s dim and mysterious, indigo and grey. Chris swears, flails around, smacks his phone. Grumbles, shows signs of wanting to face-plant into the closest pillow.  
  
“No,” Sebastian says, chest aching. The morning’s chilly, New York ice on the blade of dawn. “You have to go. Catch a flight. With your movie people. LA, remember? Come on, up.”   
  
Chris sighs. Shoves himself upright. His tattoos shimmer dark over rippling muscle, stories as yet untold. Sebastian will never know. Chris will go to Los Angeles and smile under palm trees and keep a memory of this night and of an escort agency who’d given him friends and sexual exploration and joy. Chris will be a famous director, and will maybe visit once in a while, and they’ll be friends, because they are.  
  
He hurts everyplace, hollow and preemptively lonely. Brittle and frail, like bird’s-bones, like old cobwebs hanging by a thread. But he’s made Chris happy.   
  
And he’s good at taking care of people. And Chris needs to be on a plane.  
  
“I’ll make breakfast,” he offers, “quickly, if you want to get dressed.”  
  
“Seb—” Chris stops, shakes his head. Swings legs over the side of the bed, stops again, gathering Sebastian’s hands into his. “This was—this is, with you—god, I don’t fuckin’ have words for—I don’t know how to say everything I—this isn’t something I even was looking for, when I first called you, I didn’t know…”  
  
“It’s fine,” Sebastian says encouragingly, and squeezes those big kind hands and lets them go, while his heart shreds itself into pieces. Tattered paper, a heap without life, inert. Not what Chris was looking for. Not what Chris meant to find. “I know. You came to us looking for companionship, Chris. I’m glad we could give you that.”  
  
“Companionship—” Chris cuts himself off. Seems not to know what to do with his hands. With his voice. With slumping shoulders. “I…yeah. I guess I should…I should go…are you, y’know, okay? If you need anything—if you need an, an anchor, you said, if you need me to stay I’ll—”  
  
“You were perfect.” Smile, smile, don’t scream, don’t cry, don’t fall to the floor and let those ragged paper-torn edges show. Don’t hurt Chris’s gentle soul. “You took excellent care of me. Did you want food before you go?”  
  
“…no, I, um, I guess I. Shouldn’t. I’ll just.” Chris waves a hand vaguely. “Have you seen my—”  
  
Sebastian wordlessly holds out boxers from the floor. One pillow’s down there, he notices. Knocked over the cliff in the night.  
  
“Thanks,” Chris says, accepting clothing. Moments after that he’s dressed, and moments after that he’s walking to the door, biting his lip, glancing away. Sebastian follows, underwear and t-shirt hastily thrown on, feeling useless. He can’t even feed Chris one more time.  
  
“I’m gonna, um.” Chris shrugs, both shoulders, lift and drop of weight. His smile’s lopsided and looks as if it’s taking effort. “Can I…kiss you? One more time?”  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian whispers, proud of his voice not shaking. Chris’s lips land on his in a desperate whirlwind of possession and morning beard-stubble and a low groan, a nip of teeth, a lick into his mouth. Sebastian trembles, head spinning, confused and craving; but Chris is pulling away, saying, “Can I call you from LA, if you’re not busy, I mean, I don’t want to bother you, shit, never mind, I’ve gotta go, let me know how everyone’s doing, Pratt’s mother and—” and he’s out the door and into the stairwell.  
  
Sebastian stands in his doorway. Stares blankly at the opposite wall. The wall stares back.  
  
He’s alone. Chris left and he’s alone. Chris left, as they both knew would happen, and he should be fine with that, he should be professional, he should—  
  
His hand shakes as he closes the door. He observes this in a distant way. Detached.   
  
He steps back into his apartment. His home. His home with messy sheets hanging halfway to the floor, the taste of laughter and the heat of Chris’s bare skin lingering like ghosts in the air—  
  
He turns toward the kitchen on autopilot. Morning. Breakfast. He gazes at the fridge and can’t remember what to do with it.  
  
He finds himself in his bedroom, and he can’t remember how he got there. His feet are cold. Bare.  
  
It’s not subdrop; he’s been down that road enough times to know, though some small element’s contributing. Chris took good care of him and brought him back gradually; he’s not being trampled by endorphin withdrawal. He _is_ a submissive who just went down further than he has in ages, and he’s shivering with belated comprehension and need: he wants Chris, he needs Chris, needs that glorious safe space in which to fly. He’s mourning for the loss, of course.  
  
It’s more than that. It’s not something he’s felt with anyone else. This scraped-out gutted sensation, evisceration as clean as a stiletto-slip—  
  
He loves Chris Evans. Chris makes him laugh in bed and out of it. Chris makes him remember how to be all the pieces of himself: sassy provocative brat, sweet good boy, competent compassionate business manager, bashful author, terrifying outer-space geek, unabashed romantic. Chris has smiled at every single piece, and makes his heart perform waltzes with a grin.  
  
But he’s not Chris’s lover, submissive, beloved. He’s Chris’s friend and single-encounter splendid-memory interlude. He’s supposed to step back and let Chris go, more confident and optimistic, back into the dazzle of movie magic and camera enchantment. As Chris indeed has: darting out his door. Not looking back; not looking for this, his head reminds him.  
  
And he _is_ competent, he’s professional, he’s fine—he’s not—he’s not—  
  
“Oh no,” he says weakly, and takes a step back and runs into his dresser and slides to the floor, landing beside the abandoned pillow. He grabs it, shaking, holding it to his chest as if that’ll stop the cave-in. The pillow tries its best.  
  
He’s not exactly crying. Too deep and vital for that. Pierced through, such that he can only gasp for air. Drowning on land.  
  
A noise rattles the apartment. A sound that isn’t him.  
  
He freezes, wide-eyed, scattered and numb and grabbing at farflung wits. Not a knock—but that’d sounded like his door—  
  
He hasn’t locked the door.  
  
Oh god. Oh god, someone’s here—and he could try those Krav Maga moves, could defend himself—but right now he can barely breathe—  
  
Might be Anthony or Jeremy or someone from downstairs. An agency employee. Having seen Chris leave. Coming to check on him. But they’d’ve called first.  
  
Would he have heard it if they had?  
  
Someone _else?_ Someone supposedly in another country, returned to rampage through the agency and threaten his address out of scared escorts and storm obsessively upstairs?  
  
But a voice is here now, a voice shouting, “Sebastian? Sebastian, answer me!” and he knows that voice, it just left, but Chris can’t be back, Chris wouldn’t’ve—  
  
He can’t talk. He can’t _move_.  
  
He’s sitting in a tangled heap of his own legs on his bedroom floor, back against a bedpost, hugging his pillow, when Chris barrels through the door. “Sebastian—!”  
  
Chris, Sebastian’s lips say, Sebastian’s heart says. Automatic. He can’t believe it yet.  
  
Chris swears, shocked and scared, and plunges to knees on the floor at his side. The impact sounds like it hurts; Sebastian winces on his behalf, but Chris’s face drains of color. “Are you—oh no, fuck, no, did I—I _did_ hurt you—”  
  
“No!” He pulls a hand away from his loyal pillow. Grabs Chris’s arm, clumsy as ever. “No, no, I—I thought—you came back. Here. How are you here?”  
  
“I couldn’t get on the plane.” Chris eases closer, reaches out—tentative, painfully so—and trails a finger along Sebastian’s cheek. Sebastian’s heart quivers, full to breaking, stuffed to capacity with diamonds and dreams and fear that it’s all not true. “Couldn’t even get down the stairs. Somewhere around the fifth floor I thought, what the hell am I doing, I don’t want to be anywhere but here. Even if—but you’re not okay, god, I should never’ve left, please let me help. Please let me help, whatever it is.”  
  
“You came back,” Sebastian says, because it might be real. He’s sitting on his floor wearing only yesterday’s underwear and a faded Rutgers t-shirt, and dawn’s coming into shape around them, and Chris Evans is kneeling beside him, touching his cheek. “You wanted to come back.”  
  
Chris bites a lip, eyes anxious, hair standing up. “Yeah. For you. _Please_ let me try to take care of you. Anything you need.”  
  
“You,” Sebastian says.  
  
“…what?”  
  
“I need you.” He moves his pillow. Sets it to the side with a pat: thanks for being here too. It fluffs up excitedly; his fingers shake when he walks them along Chris’s arm, up to Chris’s chest, curling around Chris’ neck to hold on. “I’m okay. I mean I’m not hurt. But I do need your help.” Chris _feels_ real. So does his next inhale: poised and clear as the sky on a winter morning, bright and endless and bracing and alive.  
  
Chris asks without words; Sebastian nods and gets pulled into that lap, cradled close. Chris is breathing fast, heart beating fast when he leans against muscles, and Chris whispers, “When you didn’t answer—when I came in and you were on the floor—”  
  
“Crying into a pillow,” Sebastian says, shaky, self-deprecating, on the verge of laughter, “over you. You seriously missed your flight?”  
  
“Technically not yet, but I’m not moving. Los Angeles can get along without me for a day. Crying?”  
  
“I needed this,” Sebastian says, being petted now, Chris’s hand in his hair, “I need you, I said, Chris, didn’t you listen to me…”  
  
“Seb…” Chris chokes on a hiccup of sound, on tears. “I have to ask you something. I’m too late, I know—you already said—companionship—but if you would, if there’s any chance you would—I can’t not ask. I have to.”  
  
“So ask,” Sebastian suggests. His Chris—if, if, if, but maybe—does like a challenge. A partner.   
  
“You—you _want_ me to…” Chris gazes at him. Slowly starts to grin. “Sebastian Stan.”  
  
“Yes, sir?”  
  
“I love you. I didn’t plan to fall in love—with anyone—I thought I was just filming a movie, lookin’ for a way to connect with people, a way to not be all, y’know, scared and anxious and self-conscious around people. I found you. No. You found me.”  
  
“Technically you called _us_ —”  
  
“Shut up, Seb.” Chris kisses him, though, so that’s okay. “I’m having a romantic moment. I’m a director. I can do that.”  
  
“Yes, Chris. Can I say something?”  
  
“Right now?”  
  
“I love you.”  
  
“Oh my god,” Chris says, “you win. Best romantic speech. Ever. So much for mine.” But his eyes get soft and wondering, aglow with disbelief and desire. “You do? I mean…you really do?”  
  
“I love you,” Sebastian says, secure in the strength of those arms around him. “I’ve never taken a vacation. I’m owed some time off. I hear Los Angeles is nice. But, wait, finish yours—!”  
  
“Los Angeles—oh fuck yes. Yes. I love you, yes. Um. Where was—”  
  
“Finding me?”  
  
“Right. You found me.” Chris squeezes him more tightly. Sebastian’s weary muscles, overworked from exertion and emotion, glory in the closeness. “I’m not scared around you. I’m not self-conscious around you. I’m not worried around you. Maybe _about_ you, when you throw yourself in front of angry clients or furniture—”  
  
“Not on a daily basis!”  
  
“—but you like me worrying about you, too. I can say whatever, however words come out, anything, and it’ll come out right somehow. Around you. You take care of me. I think I fell in love the first time I walked into your office and you told your desk to go to the devil. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Every time I was with someone else I was thinking about you—stop doing the skeptical eyebrows, you’re too cute, I want to kiss you—I mean I was thinking about you taking care of me. Because every time you gave me to someone else you were trying to take care of me. You’re amazing, Sebastian Stan, and I love you.”  
  
Sebastian by now is tearing up, sniffling and damp-eyed and no doubt highly unattractive. Chris strokes thumbtips over his cheeks, smooths away wetness. “Want me to say it more? I love you. All of you. I’m here.”  
  
“You are,” Sebastian manages, closing eyes, opening them, kissing Chris’s fingertips. “We’ll—we can have this. We can do this. I don’t know how, so many details, we’ll have to—but we can. Together.” His phone’s ringing, he notices distantly. Both phones. Anthony, at least one of them. Probably other friends. “I can do some of my work for this place from anywhere, as long as I have my laptop. I can write anywhere. I can write more. I can take time off. And…”  
  
“And?” So tender, so loving; and Sebastian lets himself be loved.  
  
“And it’s not as if I’m taking _any_ clients anymore. Not even old friends. I’m only yours.” He wants to say more—I trust you, I feel this with you when I thought I’d never feel it again, I don’t think about the past, I feel good under your hands—but he thinks, from the answering expression, he doesn’t need to. “If you want me.”  
  
“What the _fuck_ do you mean _if_ ,” Chris retorts, and goes on for a few minutes, interspersing profanities amid praise and grumbles about how Sebastian’s the best sunrise in the world and the world should just know this fact, Seb himself included. The world, breaking into day, shrugs benevolently and makes allowances for loving exaggeration. Sebastian rests his head on Chris’s shoulder, and smiles to himself.  
  
“You know I don’t care,” Chris says, “about anything people might say—not that you’re not respectable, you are, it’s not even a problem, unless specific clients are, I guess. But I _don’t_ care. I’ll fucking kiss you anywhere. In public.”  
  
“I know. That’s not what I was thinking. Though you can certainly kiss me _anywhere_ , in public or at home. I think I’ve figured out an ending for my short story.”  
  
“A happy one,” Chris asks, unsure but guessing.  
  
“Oh yes,” Sebastian says, lifting his head for a kiss as the city comes to morning life outside on the streets, bustle and action and early sunbeams at the edges of windowpanes, “it’s a romance.”  
  
When they finally emerge, sex-flushed and wobbly and triumphant, Jeremy’s message sends them to the third floor for some garbled sort of meeting. Meeting might not be the word, though. Every single currently unoccupied agency employee’s waiting outside Sebastian’s office, scattered around the hallway: sitting, lounging, reading books, playing some sort of flexible leapfrog down the corridor. They simultaneously stop and cheer and applaud, goodnatured wolf-whistles and calls ringing off antique hotel wallpaper and light-fixtures, dancing down the building’s bones. Even Pratt sends a text, suspiciously time-coordinated with the cheering, which says _KNEW IT!!! AND ALSO MOM SAYS THANKS FOR BALLOONS OKAY HAVE FUN TELL ME DETAILS LATER BOSS CONGRATS YOU TWO._   
  
Chris blushes pink but doesn’t let go of his hand. Sebastian, blushing equally as much and happier than he’s ever known, says, “Ah, Anthony, we need to close Chris’s client file…” and Anthony Mackie, beaming, comes forward to thump Chris on the back and to pull Sebastian into a hug, saying, “Already done.”


End file.
